


In The Shadow Of The Western Hills

by commoncomitatus



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Fear/Phobias, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-10 22:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 41,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3305540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sera's first encounter with a Fade rift goes badly.  Cassandra tries to be understanding.  Vivienne... does not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s just a frigging ram, innit?

That’s the stupid part. Well, the stupid _est_ part, really. Honestly, the whole bloody thing is pretty stupid, all told, and the frigging rams are mostly just the stupid icing on the stupid cake.

Not that there’s anything stupid about cake. Come to think of it, maybe that’s what this stupid place really needs. Cake. Sit the templars and the bloody mages down, all peaceful and quiet and not-killing-each-other-like, and let ’em eat cake. Plenty of it, and enough for the refugees too, because who doesn’t like cake? And wouldn’t that make everyone happy? Wouldn’t it solve basically every frigging problem they’ve run into out here in this stupid backwards place?

Well, except that one guy with the ‘special’ ram, but Sera’s at least six per cent sure that she hasn’t shafted that one yet. And she’ll be a whole lot less likely to, too, if the Herald and her friends are too busy eating cake to breathe down her neck while she’s aiming.

So. Yeah. Cake. Cake makes everyone happy, even the crazies with the ‘special’ rams, and definitely the not-at-all crazies dying of starvation back at the Crossroads. People get fed, people get happy, everyone wins. And, best of all in this imaginary cake scenario, there wouldn’t be anyone left to demand that Sera and her arrows go running around the arse end of nowhere shooting bloody frigging rams. Cake. Perfect plan, every time.

“I bet Vivvy could bake a great one,” she says out loud, then wonders why everyone’s suddenly staring at her like she’s lost her head. “What?”

Vivienne, of course, heaves the kind of sigh that would win Melodrama Of The Year awards back in Orlais. “Remind me again, my dear Herald… why, exactly, did we bring her along?”

The Herald shrugs. She’s some smart-mouthed elfy-elf from some Dalish clan — _Lavellan_ , Sera remembers, if only because the rest of the Inquisition won’t bloody well shut up about it — and for the most part she’s okay, but sometimes it’s just too much elf for Sera’s scrambled little brain to handle. Shame, really; she’d be nice to look at if only she wasn’t so bloody self-righteous.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she’s saying, and the fact that her smile is _almost_ not as elfy as usual is pretty much the only thing stopping Sera from putting an arrow through it, and through Vivvy too. “Besides, she’s the only one who can make a kill at a hundred paces.” She looks serious. Annoying. “It’s a small price to pay, don’t you think, if it gets the refugees the food they need.”

Seeker Cassandra, strolling a few paces ahead, makes a disgusted noise. Like anyone even asked her. “I still don’t see why we couldn’t have brought Varric,” she says. “It might almost be worth the endless bragging for a little sanity.”

Sera glares daggers at Vivienne for that, because of course it’s her all fault that the Seeker is looking at her like yesterday’s bad breakfast. _Bloody buttoned-up bitch,_ she thinks. _Always sides with her._

“Sanity’s overrated,” she says aloud, because it’s safer than the other thing. “Kind of like your frigging rams.”

And speaking of rams, there’s another. As good a way out of this conversation as any, luckily for everyone, and Sera locks in on the stupid thing. Turns her brain off, stops thinking, just aims. She nocks another arrow, quicker than any of the others can even blink, useless idiots, and strides off in hot pursuit.

She’ll show ’em, she thinks. All of them, yeah, but especially that Viv. She’s the worst of the lot, even worse than bloody Solas and his crazy elf Fade dreaming bullshit. At least he lets her ignore him, sometimes. Occasionally. When he’s not trying to make stuff out to be more than it is. Who even cares what colour the frigging sky is?

Not the point, though; point is, at least Solas cuts her some slack once in a while. Vivienne… she won’t be ignored for anyone or anything. Even if she’s got nothing to say, she’s still gotta bloody well say something. Still gotta be heard, still gotta have every pair of eyes on her. Attention; isn’t that the most important thing in the sodding world to an Orlesian rich bitch? It drives Sera worse than crazy, the way she doesn’t let up, not even for a second; she’s the worst kind of stiff-arsed noble, Vivvy, and she deserves a whole lot worse than mud on her stupid shoes and Sera sticking her tongue out.

So, then, when she lets the arrow fly and it catches the stupid bloody ram right between its stupid eyes — blink, gasp, _dead_ , in a shower-spray of blood and guts and grossness — maybe there’s a teeny-tiny little part of her that imagines shafting someone else in the head instead. Maybe. A little. _Someone_.

Lavellan, blissfully oblivious to Sera’s inner thoughts, is dutifully impressed. She rests a hand on Sera’s shoulder for a second or two as she passes, and flashes her a smile that might be pretty if not for all that stupid Dalish ink.

“Good shot,” she says, like that counts as an apology for Vivvy and everything she stands for, like the frigging _Herald of Andraste_ is somehow responsible for everyone else’s screw-ups. Sera wants to tell her that’s stupid, that it’s nothing to do with her, but before she gets the chance the Herald is elbows-deep in sheep’s guts, cutting out the good bits and making them into something the refugees back at the Crossroads can eat.

Sera turns away as she works. Killing is one thing, an easy thing when she switches her brain off, but this is something else entirely. It makes her stomach churn, makes her head hurt. Good cause or no, the whole skinning-gutting-meat-making part is _gross_ , and it forces her to stop and think about what’s going on, how those rams work, what makes ’em run. She doesn’t want to do that, and she definitely doesn’t want to think too hard about her part in all this, the killing part, and how sometimes it’s more than just killing, how sometimes people need to do stuff like this, how they need to kill or else they’ll die instead.

She doesn’t want to think about the refugees, either, the people she’s doing this for, starving and freezing and dying for the want of some sodding meat. She doesn’t want to think about their faces, pinched and pale, and remember that she can’t do anything except shoot arrows at rams and turn her face away while someone braver and better than her turns it into meat.

“A good shot, indeed,” Cassandra echoes.

She sounds thoughtful this time, not annoyed and bored like before, not all posh and prim and _‘yes, Lady Viv, whatever you say, Lady Viv’_. The thoughtfulness makes it mean a little more, even if the rest still sticks in Sera’s throat like a bone from some dead ram.

“You don’t need to keep saying it,” she says, because she can’t exactly take a compliment at face-value, can she? Not with Viv standing there looking like Cassandra and the Herald must’ve lost their bloody minds to see anything of value in her, like they must be crazy to think she’s good at anything. “I know I’m a good shot. Don’t need you to keep saying it. Why’d you think I signed up for this freak show in the first place?”

“Why, out of the goodness of your heart, of course.”

That’s Viv, chucking in her two sovereigns’ worth like always. Sera mutters her annoyance, and makes a show of catching her arrow between her fingers when Lavellan digs it out of the ram carcass and throws it back. Wipes off the blood on her shirt, too, just to horrify poor Lady Vivvy that little bit more. Why not, yeah?

“You can shut it,” she says. “No-one asked for your sodding opinion.”

“Evidently not.” Viv’s voice is ice, solid and frozen, turning the air blue like the stuff that comes out of her staff. “If they had, I can assure you this little escapade would have been over much more quickly, and with considerably less mess.”

“Pfft,” Sera snorts. “Why not just suck all the fun out of everything?”

Lavellan sighs. “All right.”

Apparently, she’s is big on living up to that dumb nickname of hers, _Herald_ , playing the peacekeeper and shit, because all of a sudden she’s glaring at them both like she’s their mother. Or, well, like how Sera always imagined a mother would glare at her, anyway. A proper mother, like a real one, the kind that only ever gets mad when you do something really stupid. That’s the look on Heraldy Heraldson’s face right now, and she’d hate it if it didn’t make her feel so small.

“You too?” she asks in a petulant whine. “Doesn’t anyone know how to have fun around here?”

“Not while people are starving,” the Herald points out, and doesn’t that just make Sera feel like the shittiest person in Thedas? “I think we’re about done here, don’t you?”

Cassandra, who’s been watching Sera and Vivienne like she’d watch a game of Wicked Grace, looks almost ready to start crying at the sheer indignity of it all. “Maker, I hope so…”

“Works for me,” Sera says, fussing moodily with her bow. “I’m down four good arrows, and the rest are all sticky. You people supply shit like that, right?”

“Such admirable priorities you have, my dear,” Vivienne drawls with a wry twitch of her mouth.

“Like yours are any better, Lady Diamonds-On-The-Soles-Of-My-Shoes,” Sera gripes. “Anyway, didn’t I tell you to shut it?” She turns to Cassandra, since the Herald’s busy hauling ram meat over her shoulder. “Didn’t I tell her that? You heard me, didn’t you, Seeker?”

Cassandra’s lips are twitching too, but it’s not nearly so annoying when she does it. “I heard a great many things I wish I hadn’t,” she says. “In any case, the Herald is right. We’ve been out here far too long already.”

That’s the hard part, though, innit? Getting back. It’s no picnic, lugging a shit-ton of ram’s meat halfway across the Hinterlands, and if she was a little bit more of a giving sort maybe Sera would offer to carry a little of it too, but she’s still a little pissed about the arrows she’s lost, and Vivienne keeps right on smirking that stupid Orlesian smirk, the kind that says she really wants to ask the Herald why she doesn’t just let _the help_ do the heavy lifting instead, like Sera’s only worth having around when she’s sticking stuff with arrows or carrying shit for other people. Like she’s _just some elf_ , the kind that doesn’t have a stupid mark on her hand to make her special, the kind that’s only as good as whatever mess she has to clean up.

Fuck that, she thinks. Fuck that, and fuck Lady Vivvy too. She can’t exactly stop her from thinking shit like that, but she’s sure as shit not going to prove it right. Herald or no sodding Herald, Elf Princess Lavellan can carry her own frigging meat.

Of course, it’s never that simple is it? Killing shit, carrying shit, all that shit. If that’s all anyone ever had to do, then maybe the world wouldn’t be in so much of a mess in the first place. No mages, no templars, no giant frigging hole in the sky. And wouldn’t that be just peachy? Because, yeah, it’s all well and good running around feeding refugees, but the hole’s still up there, innit? The sky’s still ripped open, and who’s gonna stop the demons pouring out of it while the Herald of Andraste’s running around the Hinterlands after frigging rams?

Turns out, no-one.

It all happens at once, all sudden and without warning and shit, and of course Sera gets confused and terrified because she has no frigging idea what’s going on.

Fact is, she’s still kind of new at this ‘running around trying to save the world from demons’ stuff, and if she’s honest she’s mostly been trying not to think about it at all. The ‘demons’ part, anyway. Too easy to get lost in bad thoughts if you let yourself think about bad things, and she’s always been better off not thinking at all. Besides, there;s too many bad things to think about already, and the hole in the sky is horrible enough without taking up space inside her brain too. It makes her feel a little sick sometimes, looking up at it, seeing all the places where the sky isn’t sky any more, the giant tear where the world’s gone wrong.

She doesn’t want to think about it, and she definitely doesn’t want to deal with it. That’s too much. Too big, too scary, and she’s not that kind of girl. Fact. If she’d thought for one minute that they’d be dealing with that shit right here and now… if she’d thought for one frigging _second_ that they’d be staring down demons and Fade shit right there in the middle of a frigging river in some backwards corner of Fereldan, she would have told the frigging Herald to stick her frigging ram’s meat someplace the sun doesn’t shine.

That’s the thing, though, innit? _If._ If she’d known, if she’d thought, if she’d realised. If, if, if, and where did ‘if’ ever get her? Nowhere, of course, because she _didn’t._ She didn’t think, and she sure as shit didn’t know. How could she? Even if she had the brain-cells to think, knowing is something else entirely, and they never tell her anything. They just drag her along and point her at stupid animals: _“kill this, Sera!”_ or _“carry that, Sera!”_ , like that’s all she’s good for. No-one tells her about the serious stuff. No-one ever tells her about _this_ stuff, not until it’s too bloody late.

Maybe Viv’s right after all; maybe she’s just not worth it.

Now’s not the time for feeling sorry for herself, though. Now is the time for world-gone-white panic, fear like she’s never known before. Now’s the time for _demons_ , and Sera has never been so scared in her entire life.

So, yeah. Of course it all happens at once, a split-second that feels like forever because she can’t breathe. It’s sudden and scary, but she doesn’t have time to think because it’s _right there_.

The Herald is crying out like, yelping she’s in pain, like she’s just got burned or shanked or worse, dropping all that carefully-slaughtered ram’s meat like it’s hot, and that stupid _thing_ on her hand is all glowing and scary just like everyone says happened when she closed the thing, the other thing, the big one. Then she’s straightening her back, face getting all serious, sort of angry, and Cassandra’s saying something about _Fade rifts_ and closing them, and then all Sera can hear is _“demons, demons, demons”_.

That’s about the point when her brain shuts down. _Demons_ , like real ones, all up close and personal and shit, proper demons, the kind that do demony things, magic things, _awful things_. Demons all around her, huge and horrible and so frigging real. Her breath catches in her lungs, throat closes up like an Orlesian trader going out of business and she can’t breathe, can’t lift her bow, can’t move at all; she can’t do anything, just _panic_ , and though she’s never really had a place she thought of as ‘home’ all of a sudden it’s all she can think of.

Home, where it’s safe, wherever that is, whatever it means. Home, somewhere that’s not demons and Fade rifts and magic, somewhere that’s not here. Anywhere, please, anywhere that isn’t here. _Home_ , where she can hide until she dies.

*

Home isn’t Haven. Or, well, Haven isn’t home.

It’s kind of ironic, that. Haven is supposed to mean ‘home’, isn’t it? The word, if not the place. It’s supposed to be a nice word, all hopeful and optimistic, a hug made out of sound. It’s supposed to be the kind of word that makes you think of wonderful things, of things like being safe and being warm and having a full belly and a big bed. A _real_ bed, right? Like, with actual pillows and everything. That’s what it’s supposed to mean. _Haven_. A safe place. The kind of place a home should be.

But it doesn’t work that way, does it? Of course it bloody doesn’t. Haven doesn’t feel like home, not even a little bit, and when Sera stares up at the hole in the sky, big green shards of Fade hovering over their heads almost close enough to touch, it’s the last place in Thedas she wants to think of of. Haven, that worthless stupid place, and she didn’t agree to any of this. She doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to think about dying with these people, these people who think a Haven is a home.

She doesn’t think of Orlais, either, though. Or Denerim. Or any of the others. She’s lived more places in her few years than most people live all their lives, but none of them feel like places she’d want to think about right now. It’s just an idea, innit? _Home_ , the kind that she’s thinking of now. It’s some stupid something that she doesn’t understand, a feeling that she’s never had. That thing that ‘haven’ is supposed to mean, not being cold or hungry or alone or… or _scared_.

But that place, wherever it is and whatever it looks like, whether it’s real or not, it’s not here. That’s what matters; she’s here, and home isn’t. Here is definitely not safe. It’s not warm and it doesn’t feel like a full belly. It feels more like sour milk, like eating or drinking something gone bad, like things going wrong inside her, things that she can’t fight. It feels like getting sick, like her whole body’s about to turn itself inside out, like feeling everything go tight and terrible inside of her and not being able to stop it. Knowing, but helpless, just waiting for the explosion, the moment she feels like dying.

That’s fear, that is. That’s the Fade and the demons and the sizzle-hiss-roar from Vivienne’s staff and the crackle of _something_ from the Herald’s stupid mark, that thing that hums like the rift above.

Haven isn’t home, but even Haven would be a better place than this. There’s places to hide in Haven, places where the demons can’t get her, where not even the fear can find her, places where she can ride out the bad things in peace, where the feelings can pass and they don’t look like demons, don’t sound like magic, don’t feel like falling _up_ , like falling into the Fade, into that horrible terrible place where everything’s nothing.

Haven’s no home, but she’s so scared she doesn’t even care; it would _protect_ her, at least. Or maybe just let her pretend for a while that it could. Either way, it’s better than this shite.

She wants to scream. She wants to look right up into that hole in the sky, the place where blue turns into green and green turns to clear, where up turns to down turns to inside-out. She wants to look right into all that backwards weirdness and scream until it goes away, until the Fade is scared of _her_. She wants to scream until she bursts, until her throat hurts so bad she can’t scream any more, until there’s nothing left of her to want to scream at all. She wants to scare the thing away, scare it like it’s scaring her. She wants, so badly that her muscles hurt, but she can’t.

It’s all very far away. She can hear it all, but her vision’s gone grey and white with panic, with horror, with all that awful fear, and it’s like she’s watching something else, watching _someone_ else, like the arms raising her bow aren’t hers at all, like the the arrows aren’t hers either, like it’s not her arms pulling back the string, not her fingers turning slick with sweat on the grip, the shaft, like she’s not even there.

But she is there, isn’t she? She is there, and she’s watching and the screams are choked in her throat, but it really is her, really is her arrow that lodges between the demon’s eyes; it has to be her, has to be, because no-one else can shoot like that, no-one else can make a kill at a hundred paces, no-one else can do all that when they can’t even see. Isn’t that what the Herald said about her? And isn’t that important? They’re supposed to believe the Herald, right? Supposed to follow her, listen to her, do what she says. So she has to know her shit. Right? She has to, or why would everyone say she’s so perfect? She has to know. _Someone_ has to know.

And that’s it. That’s it, that’s it: if the Herald thinks it’s Sera who can make a shot like that — just her, just Sera, no-one else — then it has to be her, right? It has to be. Why else would she be looking at her like that, like she did with the rams, and yelling out “Good shot!” like it really was, like it really was _her_?

She wants to say something back, to ask the Herald if she’s sure, but she can’t. She can only nock another arrow, fingers shaking and too sweaty, slipping off the shaft, slipping, useless, shaking, slipping and—

 _Shit,_ she thinks. _Shit shit shit, there’s no time for this_. No time for being slow and stupid and shitty, no time for being stupid _Sera_.

The demon’s mad now, and who can blame it? An arrow between the eyes might kill a ram quick enough, and painless too if it lands right, but a demon’s something else entirely. It’s not alive, not really, and even though it’s real it’s a kind of real that isn’t really _real_. It’s not going to die because she’s hit it from a hundred paces, not going to die because she wants to scream, and it’s sure as shit not going to die because she’s begging it to. Nope. It’s mad as anything she’s ever seen, mad like a wild thing, like _rage_ , isn’t that what they call these things? Mad, rage, and it keeps right on coming like she didn’t hit it at all, like it wasn’t a good shot at all, like the Herald lied, and all Sera can think as it comes closer, as the arrow slips out of her hand and falls uselessly to the floor, as the bow follows suit, is that she’s going to die.

She’s going to die. What use is a good shot against a bad demon? You can’t fight nightmares with arrows.

The screaming starts then, and it’s a long long time before she realises it’s her. She still can’t breathe, but apparently no-one thought to tell her lungs that breathing is important, that you can’t scream if you can’t breathe, because she’s bloody screaming anyway, screaming like the world’s ending.

Of course, that just makes it worse. Of course the stupid demon is _feeding_ off that, feeding off her fear, off her screams, off the way she’s turning white, eyes rolling back, the way she can’t see now either. Of course it’s getting bigger, getting meaner, getting off on the way she hits the floor, the way the world turns upside-down, the way she looks up, right up, _up_ into the rift, into the Fade, into the place where the nightmares live, the place where they’re all spilling out into the world. Of course the demon’s getting off on all that, getting off on _her_.

Of course it’s closing in on her, of course it is; isn’t that what demons do? Of course. She’s the weak one, the stupid one, the one who can’t do anything but scream. She’s also the one who hit it with an arrow, and of course it’s gonna be pissed about that. Of course it’s gonna go for vengeance, go for the throat, and of course she’s going to die like this. Of course she’ll go out staring up at the Fade, staring up into all that nothing. Of course she’s going to die screaming and terrified, ripped apart by demons and nightmares and horrible things. Of course she is, of course she is, _of course she is_.

It’s just her frigging luck, innit?

*

She doesn’t remember blacking out, but she must have, because when she opens her eyes it’s all gone.

The demon, the Fade rift, the great big nothing in the sky. Well, not _all_ of the nothing — the Breach is still there, of course, the great big hole in the sky — but the part that was close enough to touch. The rift part, the important part. Gone, like it was never there, vanished without a trace, like she imagined the whole thing, like it was all just some crazy stupid dream. She feels stupid and shaky, embarrassed, and her head can’t clear itself enough to figure out what’s real and what isn’t.

It’s only when she tries to sit up and hears her own voice howling in pain that she realises _this_ at least is probably real. Dreams don’t hurt, or at least she’s pretty sure they don’t. Not physically, anyway; sometimes they hurt in her head, her heart, her memory, but not her body. Not the kind of pain that lingers. Not like this.

“Do stop thrashing around, darling.” It’s Vivienne, and hearing her voice makes Sera want to scream again but for very different reasons. “You’re making this very tedious.”

“Your _face_ is tedious,” Sera blurts out, but she’s still not completely in control of her voice and it’s shaking in a way that takes away all the power.

She can’t exactly blame Vivvy for the way she rolls her eyes at that, disgust and disbelief and all those things Sera hates in her, but she doesn’t get a chance to wipe off the smirk with her fists. She wants to, even tries to, but before she can catch her breath she sees the flicker of magic lighting up Vivienne’s fingertips, a hum and a hiss, and maybe there’s a part of her that realises it’s good magic, healing probably, but that part is very small and is quickly silenced when she starts screaming again. Desperate, terrified, a wounded animal dying in an alley.

Vivienne sighs, so deep and disgruntled that Sera could almost believe that she was the one who got battered by demons instead. “Oh, for the love of Andraste…”

Sera thrashes harder, and it’s only when the pain slams into her again, a slash of violence just below her ribs that sends her curling in on herself, that she realises she’s being held down. Well, maybe held up. Held in place, anyway, and that just makes her panic all the more. Apparently, they’re all angry that she’s not dead, upset that the demon didn’t finish the job, and they want to finish it themselves. Should’ve seen it coming, really. Vivienne, Cassandra, even the sodding Herald of sodding Andraste. They all want to bloody kill her.

 _Magic_. It’s all over her, all around her, and there are strong arms holding her in place. Iron like shackles pressing down, and she can’t run, can’t get away, can’t hide. _Magic_. She always knew it would be the end of her one day.

“Sera…”

“Let go!” She thrashes again, forces back the pain, the fear, everything that threatens to choke her. She won’t let them see her crumble, won’t let them win. “Let me go, you bloody demon bastards! _Let me go_!”

“Sera.” Cassandra, almost definitely. No-one else sounds that stupidly calm when there are demons everywhere. No-one else can make it sound like everything’s okay when it’s not. No-one else can hold her so tight, so hard, and make her feel like she’s going to die. “Sera, the demons are gone. The rift is closed now.”

Her eyes, unfocused as they are, tell her that it’s the truth, but Sera doesn’t much care for truth right now. “Don’t believe you.”

“I understand. But even if you cannot believe me, at least heed me. You are perfectly safe, and you will see that for yourself soon enough, but for the moment you must try to calm down.”

“ _You_ calm down!” She cries out again, a howl that comes so much more of panic than pain. “Let me go, Seeker, or I swear to your bloody Andraste you’ll be pulling arrows out of your privates for the next three weeks!”

Cassandra, of course, does not let her go. Her armour’s heavy, pressing on Sera’s chest, like it wasn’t already hard enough to keep breathing. “Sera, you’re wounded. Not badly, but enough. You must lie still and allow Lady Vivienne to heal you.”

“Fuck that.” It’s not just her voice that’s shaking now. “I don’t want that magic shit anywhere near me. Not now, not after…” She closes her eyes, sees a flash of heat, fire, a flash of _demon_ , and chokes out another nightmare scream. “I mean it. Get her away from me. Get her away!”

When she opens her eyes again, Vivienne’s smirking even harder; it’s probably a testament to how bad everything is that Sera can’t even muster the strength to punch her lights out. “Well,” she says, voice as soft as Orlesian silk. “Far be it from me to waste my services where they’re not wanted. Would you rather we leave you here to rot, my dear?”

“Don’t care.” She turns her face to the side, breathes in the cast-iron tang of Cassandra’s armour, strength and solidity and something nearly safe. “You can do what you bloody well like, long as you don’t frigging touch me.”

Cassandra sighs, deep and low and heavy, like she has the weight of all Thedas on her shoulders, like she’s the last hope for everyone. Bloody drama queen. “Very well.”

Sera swallows. Scared, sickly, but so surprised she almost forgets. “What, really?”

“If that is truly what you want.” She shifts, and the pressure on Sera’s chest eases a little; Sera catches the flash of sunlight in Cassandra’s eyes as she turns them on Vivienne. “Thank you for the attempt,” she says, like Viv is suck a frigging martyr. “Perhaps you and the Herald could gather some elfroot instead?”

Vivienne snorts. “Elfroot.”

“Indeed. From my understanding, it serves well for balming wounds when magical means are unavailable or…” She hesitates, and Sera doesn’t miss the look on her face when she glances back at her. “…or unwanted.”

“ _You’re_ unwanted,” Sera mutters, swallowing pain.

“Quiet now, dear,” says Vivienne, with another of her maddening little smirks. “The grown-ups are talking.”

She doesn’t complain, though, about getting bossed around by someone like Cassandra. Might not agree with the idea of elfroot or whatever, but at least she’s not mad about running errands for someone else. Sera half-expects her to turn around and say that a lowly Seeker is beneath her or something, like she should be the one giving out orders, not the one obeying them. Honestly, she doesn’t know if that’s actually true or not; Seekers, Templars, Enchanters… it’s all just words to her, names that don’t mean anything, and she has no idea what most of them are even supposed to do. She just knows that Vivienne thinks pretty much _everyone_ is beneath her, so why would Cassandra be different?

Apparently she is, though, because Vivvy nods a wordless acknowledgement and saunters away with her head held high, the Herald scrambling in pursuit on those scrawny little elf legs.

That just leaves the Seeker. Well, and Sera too, but honestly she’s trying to keep herself out of this mess as much as she can. Thinking about here, about _being_ here, lying on the ground with strong hands and strong armour around her, lying there with Cassandra’s hands on her chest and her voice in her ears… it’s not a good feeling. It feels like being a kid again, like not being able to take care of herself, liking needing someone to do it for her, and she hates it. She hates the pain in her side, the place where the demon went in, where its claws went in, where maybe it went in too. She hates the sounds Cassandra’s making, all gentle and soft and not judging at all, like she’s not looking down on her, just looking down _at_ her. She hates that she doesn’t know how to fight something like that, that she’s not smart enough to understand that she’s not supposed to fight it in the first place. It’s all so new, so weird, and she hates it.

“Your spatial awareness needs work,” Cassandra remarks quietly, and that’s probably the worst pick-me-up Sera has ever heard. “You are too focused on your target. You lose sight of what’s happening around you.”

“It’s not me,” Sera mutters, probably a little more defensive than she should be, given that she’s got a demon-gash in her side that kind of proves Cassandra’s point. “It’s _them_ , innit? The bloody _demons_. They don’t play by the rules.”

Cassandra makes a strange noise in her throat; it’s disapproving, but not quite as disapproving as usual. “I suppose that’s true,” she says. “Though I wouldn’t recommend telling them so.”

Sera shudders, closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to think about that either, how close it all was. The rift, another kind of hole in the sky, so close she could touch it if she wanted to, just jump up real high and put her hand to it; it felt like falling, looking up into that thing, that place, looking up and seeing all the nothing on the other side, all the nothing where the demons live. It felt awful, and she doesn’t want to think about it.

“Demons,” she says, voice like rocks, like Cassandra’s armour, strong and solid. It’s safer to hate than to be scared. “Piss on demons.”

“A noble sentiment,” Cassandra says, and it should make Sera angry, the way she says it, all smug and smirky and condescending, but it doesn’t.

It doesn’t feel like when Viv talks to her, like she wants to scrape her off her stupid crystal-covered shoe and leave her dying on the ground. It doesn’t feel like the Herald, either, the way she looks at her like she should be _more_ — more elfy, more honourable, more than what she is. Sera isn’t ‘more’ of anything, and she’s happy that way; she doesn’t want to be more, doesn’t want to be better, but when the Herald smiles at her it feels like her smile comes with a price, like she expects her to change or grow or learn or something. Like she expects her to _become_ something, and Sera hasn’t quite figured out whether that makes her angry or just uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to become something, and even if she did she’s pretty sure she can’t. She’s just _Sera_ , the good and the shitty, and she’s just waiting for the day when Lavellan realises that, the day when she looks at her through those elfy eyes of hers and says, _“I’m sorry, Sera, but you’re not good enough”_.

It doesn’t feel like that when Cassandra talks to her. At least, not right now. Right now it feels like armour, like strength, like the sound of swords clashing and battle-cries and courage, things that don’t work against demons, things that _should_ work against demons.

It feels like she’s trying. Cassandra. Trying to understand, trying to see, trying to do a lot of things that she must realise she doesn’t have to do. It’s weird; she’s so impossibly bad at it, at sounding sincere, at being honest without being obnoxious, but it still feels like she’s trying so hard to drop herself down to Sera’s level, like she’s doing the best with what she has, the manners, the attitude, that posh upbringing of hers. And it’s not like the Herald trying to make her into something better, it’s like she’s trying for Sera’s sake. Not for herself, not to make Sera into something she wants, but to work _with_ her, beside her, not even really as an equal but at least as a _person_.

Cassandra gets that Sera’s not the same as her, not the same as the Herald or the Lady Enchanter or any of the others back at Haven. She, gets that she’s different, really _different_ , and she’s trying to see exactly where those differences sit, what they are and how she can make sense of them. Even if it won’t ever work, she’s still trying. And maybe that means that she thinks Sera might be someone worth trying for.

Sera’s not used to that. She’s not used to being worth anything at all, much less _this_.

Honestly? It’s nearly as scary as the frigging demons.

*

“If I may ask…”

It’s a stupid question, that. Or, well, not exactly a question, but a pre-question sort of thing. That’s partly why it’s stupid; no-one believes for a second that she’s really asking permission, do they? It’s not like she’s going to stop even if Sera says no, so the whole _‘if I may’_ crap doesn’t mean shit. Just pretentious bullshit to make herself feel better when she goes ahead and does what she wants regardless. Sneaky, and not in the good way, so Sera calls her out on it.

“You’re gonna ask anyway,” she says flatly. “Don’t know why you bother pretending you wouldn’t if I said ‘no’.”

Cassandra winces, but she has the decency to not bother denying it. Sera respects that, at least a little. More than the alternative, anyhow. “It seemed… appropriate,” she says quietly. “I do not want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Not without proper warning first, right?”

Cassandra tilts her head, acknowledging, not running away. “As you say.”

She sighs, almost thoughtful, and it’s only when she shifts on her haunches that Sera realises she’s been lying with her head halfway in her lap. It makes her feel awkward, like she should apologise for ‘taking advantage’ or some such stupid shit; Cassandra’s not exactly the type to take things the wrong way, or any way at all, but it still feels kind of weird without asking first, even if she doesn’t exactly remember when or how it happened.

 _‘If I may use your legs as a pillow, milady…?’_ she thinks, and doesn’t understand why the idea makes her sad.

The apology’s halfway onto her tongue, almost turned into real words, when something inside her head cuts them short. Something like… well, this whole thing is more than just awkward and weird, innit? It’s not just like _‘oops, here I am with my head in the Seeker’s lap, la la la, let’s pretend it never happened’_. It’s not because if she really lets herself think about it, she doesn’t want to pretend it never happened. It’s not just _’oops’_ , it’s also kind of _‘well, this is weird, but also kind of good’_.

The good, such as it is, makes it even weirder. Not in a scary way, though, at least not scary like demons and magic are scary, and it makes her realise that she actually kind of likes Cassandra. High-and-mighty as she is, sheltered and self-righteous with her perfect little life and her trained-from-birth-to-be-a-badass-warrior bullshit, all of it. Still, somehow Sera kind of likes her.

For a start, she’s tough. She’s tough and brave and she’s not scared of demons. Lying down like this, with Cassandra’s knees under her head, armour all sharp and glinting and made of iron, with her chest right above her face (nice view, and that doesn’t hurt either), with the quiet way her voice rumbles and the way it never judges… with all that, Sera can almost imagine that she might be safe here one day, that a haven like Haven might be a home after all. The armour is one thing, pretty and solid, but it’s _Cassandra_ that’s strong, and she’s the one who makes Sera feel like this.

She swallows it all down, grits her teeth instead. One more second and she’ll spill all that shit right out, and that’s the last thing either of them needs.

“Well?” she grumbles instead, because it’s easy enough to play at being cranky when she’s in pain. “Get on with it, then.” She clears her throat. “You _may_ ask.”

Cassandra chuckles, but it’s a bit strained, like she’s nervous. _Cute,_ Sera thinks, and instantly chastens herself.

“I was simply wondering what the pain is like,” Cassandra says, like a confession. “I have fought demons many times, as you know—” Sera didn’t know that, actually, but she doesn’t particularly care either. “—but I have never been gouged by one. At least, not so deep as that. Not so… clean. On the rare occasion that a blow lands, my armour takes the brunt, and for the rest, my—”

“—your _talent_ keeps you safe,” Sera finishes, annoyed. That warm fuzzy safe feeling is starting to vanish now, even quicker than it showed up. “What’re you saying, Seeker? You’re not as clumsy as me? Not as stupid? Not as _shit_?”

“Not at all!” She sounds positively horrified. Textbook ‘polite’ bullshit, of course, and Sera’s not impressed.

“Then what?” She clears her throat again, makes her voice go high in a bad imitation of a difficult voice. “ _‘Oh, woe is me, I’m too bloody perfect! What’s it like to get hit, Sera? What’s it like when a demon puts its fist inside you, Sera?’_ That it?”

Of course, now that she’s put it that way, it’s all she can think about. Demons and their fists, their claws, the parts of them that are big enough and sharp enough to tear pieces out of stupid shitty elves, the parts of them that are mean and dangerous. What if it’s still there? What if there are bits of it still inside her? It’s big enough, isn’t it? The place in her side, the horrible hurty place where it went in. It’s big enough, hurty enough, and what if the stupid frigging demon is still there? What if it’s swimming around inside her? Does that mean she’s possessed? Does it mean she’s dying? And which one would be worse?

She feels sick. Clenches her jaw. Tries to sit up, but the pain lances her side, fierce and hot and demony, and holds her down as sure as any iron fist.

She wants to scream with the unfairness of it all, scream at the Breach, the place where the demons live, scream her lungs out. Because of course it’s all she can think of now, isn’t it? Demons, the thing that cut pieces out of her, and the way Cassandra’s looking at the torn-up place like she expects one to come bursting out of it, out of _her_ , at any moment. She wants to undo the question, the words, the nightmare things it made her think, but she can’t. It’s done now, innit? It’s bloody _done_ , and all she can do is lash out with her fists until they slam against armour.

“You’re a right tit,” she grits out. “You know that? A right sodding tit. And cruel, to boot.”

“I don’t intend to be,” Cassandra insists, like she gets called that sort of thing every day. The way she talks, maybe she does. “Truly, Sera. I didn’t mean to upset—”

“Yes, you bloody did. No-one says _‘if I may…’_ unless they know they’re about to upset someone.”

Cassandra sighs again, but it’s deep and regretful. “In that case, I can only apologise again. My curiosity got the best of me. But as you say, perhaps I should not have indulged it. I should not have taken your feelings so lightly, and I should not have asked.”

She doesn’t sound particularly sincere, but it’s that whole ‘trying’ thing again, and Sera realises that she’s something of a sucker for bullshit like that, because she feels herself crumbling a bit. She doesn’t believe her, not even a little bit, but she kind of wishes she could, and that softens her fists until they turn back into open palms.

“Bloody right, you shouldn’t have.” She closes her eyes, forces herself to breathe. “Why’d you go and make me think about that? Why’d you go and ruin everything?”

“I didn’t realise I was doing so,” Cassandra says, and she sounds almost honest.

“Well, you did, didn’t you? You _did_. With your… with your stupid question and your stupid words and you… you…” She thinks of demons in her blood, hot and angry, bites back another cry. “You bloody went and ruined it.”

“Ruined _what_?” She sounds exasperated, upset that she doesn’t understand. “What have I ruined, Sera?”

But that’s it, isn’t it? How does she explain? How can she make someone like Cassandra understand what it’s like, how it feels to be so scared, so terrified by something that even thinking about it is like a whole new level of pain? How can she explain to the Princess of Perfect what it’s like when every thought is a new fear made manifest, when every breath is another hundred reasons to be terrified? It’s like the blood doesn’t matter, or the screech of pain when she moves, or knowing how close to death she might or might not have been; none of that matters at all, because it’s the _fear_ that cripples her. It’s the _thinking_.

“It’s just pain,” she says at long last, because at least this way she can pretend she’s just answering the stupid question. “It’s pain, and it hurts. What else do you want to know? You want to know if it feels like demons, like the Fade’s inside me now?” She wants to throw up her arms, but they won’t move. “Well, it bloody does _now_ , doesn’t it? Because you ruined it. You had to go and ask about it, didn’t you? Had to go and make me wonder, make me _think_. And it’s not just pain any more, is it? Now it’s _demon pain_ , and it… it…”

Cassandra’s face is sad now, and soft. “I see,” she says, ever so quietly.

Sera isn’t quiet at all, or soft. “No, you don’t,” she snaps, as violent as she can manage. “No, you bloody _don’t_.”

Cassandra doesn’t say anything, but the softness doesn’t fade from her face, even after that explosion. Sera wants to yell some more, tell her to take that stupid pitying look and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine; she wants to shove her away, put her head down on the dirty hard ground if it’ll make things better, if it can convince either one of them that she doesn’t need this, doesn’t need that face, that sorrow or that softness. She wants to do a lot of things, but she doesn’t, won’t, _can’t_.

And maybe Cassandra senses that in her, sees the parts of her that want to be stronger than they are, that want to be better, the kind of ‘better’ that the Herald wants her to be. And maybe she sees the other parts as well, the parts that aren’t like that at all, the parts that’ll probably never be like that, the parts that wish they didn’t need to be shielded by strong solid iron, the parts that secretly think they like it.

There’s a clink and a clang, a slide of metal on metal and a shift underneath, and Sera looks up to see that Cassandra’s pulling her gloves off. Wait, no. Not gloves. ‘Gauntlets’, right? Isn’t that what you call gloves made out of metal? Or greaves, but then maybe greaves are for legs? So many things, so many different pieces of armour, different bits of metal to make a person strong; how does anyone ever get them to fit together, so neat and perfect? How do they remember where all those bits and pieces go?

And then there’s contact. Not solid and strong, not cast-iron and courage, but steady and soft, so tender it almost hurts. Her hands, Cassandra’s hands. Seeker’s hands, but they’re not seeking. It’s kind of deliberate, the way she touches her, fingertips at her face and her side, brushing the place where Sera still remembers the cut of demon claws, the tearing of skin, blood, pain, _Fade_ … She feels it all, skin on skin, and it’s more than a little painful, the contact and the connection, but she can’t pull away now any more than she could have pulled her head out of her lap a moment ago, turned her face into the dirt and rocks, pulled back from Cassandra’s strength when she was so weak.

“Warm,” Cassandra says, and it takes a moment for Sera to realise she’s talking about the wound, not the way her skin feels, the softness and the sweetness.

“Not very,” she argues, because she has to believe that. Warm means heat, heat means _rage_ , and that’s the demon. If the wound is warm, if _she’s_ warm… She shudders. “No.”

“Sera.” Cassandra’s voice sounds like pain.

“No,” she says again. “Doesn’t feel bad. It’s just… it’s _magic_ , yeah? It’s magic, and it’s the Fade and that big hole in the sky, and it’s… it’s _demons_ and it’s…”

 _It’s in me,_ she thinks, and feels another scream bubbling in her stomach. _It’s in me, it’s inside me, it’s in me, it’s—_

“I understand,” Cassandra says, cutting off the words, the thoughts, the horror. “Being cautious around demons is not cowardice, Sera, it is common sense. And this Breach…” She shakes her head, lost for words for a moment or two, and her fingertips twitch, the right ones over Sera’s jaw and the left ones across her ribs. “The world itself is unravelling around us. Only a fool would not be afraid.”

“I’m not _afraid_ ,” Sera insists, but her voice is a tremor, almost a whimper. It’s embarrassing, and she feels so small. “It’s just…”

“Demons,” Cassandra finishes with another sad look. “Yes.”

Sera tries to say _"piss on demons’_ again, but this time the words refuse to come. “Hate them,” she says instead. “Demons. Magic. All of it. I frigging _hate_ it.”

Cassandra’s smile is almost brighter than the sunlight flaring off her armour. “You’re certainly not alone in that.”

Sera doesn’t say, _‘Then why does it feel like I am?’_. She doesn’t talk about how weird and embarrassing it is, how she knows what they all think of her, what they see when they look at her. She’s not elfy, but she’s from the city and she has pointy ears, and that kind of means something to people like Cassandra, people like Vivienne, maybe even the Herald too. _Lavellan_ , with her stupid Dalish ink and her stupid Dalish attitude. City elves are the worst kind of scum to people like her, and Sera’s worse than most. She knows exactly what she looks like, knows that she’ll never match up to any one of them. She’s never fought demons, at least not outside her nightmares; before today, she’d never even seen a real one. She’s never had to deal with holes in the sky, the Fade, any of this shite. She doesn’t know anything, she’s not good enough, she’s _stupid_.

“Vivienne’s not afraid of demons,” she says, and there’s a bitterness in her mouth that tastes like jealousy.

Cassandra’s lips twitch, like she wants to laugh but doesn’t quite dare. “I would not assume such a thing,” she says, the words like a lesson. “You have spent time in Val Royeaux, have you not? You should know as well as anyone that appearances are everything there.”

Sera snorts an almost-laugh. It hurts, but the amusement chases the pain away. “So, what are you saying? Stick a demon under her bed one night and see if she screams?”

“Not at all.” Going by the look on her face, though, she’d secretly love to see that. “I’m simply saying, do not presume to know the struggles that others face. We’re all haunted by something, Sera. Lady Vivienne has her struggles, just as you have yours. She simply lacks the freedom you have to confront them openly.”

“Stupid,” Sera says.

It makes her feel better, though, thinking about it like that. Lady Viv, scared of stuff. The Lady Enchanter who doesn’t even get to fart in public, and of course she wouldn’t be allowed to admit she’s scared of something. Probably break like a hundred Orlesian laws or something. That’s good, thinking that way; Sera can work with that. It helps, makes people like Vivienne seem more normal, seem more like her, even if they’re about as far away from each other as two people could ever be; still, it’s as close to it as she’ll ever get. Makes her feel a little less worthless, anyway, a little less pathetic, a little more like she might have a place next to all these big-shots after all.

Cassandra’s fingers, the ones on Sera’s side, dance a little closer to the wound, a little closer to where she imagines the heat, the rage, the _demon_ , where she imagines she can feel the magic crackling in her veins, the poison turning her into something new. A part of her wants to flinch back, tell Cassandra that she doesn’t want to think about what lies under the blood, but it’s hard to tell Cassandra anything; besides, her hands are warm and light and so soft under all that armour, and she kind of wants her to stay. More than she wants to be stoic, more than she wants to flinch, more than she wants to pretend she’s not got demon stuff inside her. She likes the contact, likes what it means, likes imagining that Cassandra might like her too.

“I was afraid, too,” Cassandra murmurs, voice low and secretive. “The first time I fought a demon. The first time I saw one. I was terrified, just as you were.”

“Wasn’t _terrified_ ,” Sera counters, but her voice is like water. “Was just _cautious_.”

Cassandra shrugs. _Not the point,_ her shoulders say. “Regardless. _I_ was terrified.”

It’s a strange kind of confession, and it hits Sera right in the gut, makes her uncomfortable, like she needs to heave or belch, or some other inappropriate thing that she knows Cassandra wouldn’t approve of. She swallows it down, that feeling, that whatever-it-is, forces it back until she can breathe again, until her throat opens up to let the air back in, until the green-clear-nothing in the sky stops spinning around her head, until she can pick apart the little pieces of what Cassandra’s trying to say, what she’s trying to make her see.

_Once, long ago, I was like you._

_Bullshit,_ Sera thinks, because she can’t afford to believe it, can’t afford to be faithful now.

She feels exposed, open, like Cassandra can see all the parts of her Sera doesn’t want to admit are there, the parts she doesn’t want to _believe_ are there. She doesn’t like it — hates it, really — but at the same time it’s kind of like the armour, like that strong and solid thing, and it wouldn’t work if it was Vivienne here instead, or if it was the Herald or Varric or anyone else in Thedas. They couldn’t do this, couldn’t make her shiver like this. But she can. Cassandra, the Seeker. She can do it. She’s the one in the armour, the one who doesn’t understand but tries, the one who doesn’t want Sera to be more than the little thing she is.

 _I was like you,_ she’s saying, and Sera wonders how someone born with a silver spoon in her mouth can get away with saying shit like that, with making it sound so convincing, so compelling, so much like something Sera might wish for. She can’t. She shouldn’t. It should be wrong, should be stupid, some rich spoiled brat pretending she knows what hardship is. It should be… it should…

But it’s not about hardship, is it? Not this time. Or, well, not all of it. It’s about the part that hurts, the part that still sticks like a dagger in Sera’s side every time she has to face it, the part that reminds her every time she tries to get away that she never will. Being cold and hungry and miserable… that’s bullshit. Anyone can deal with that if they have to. You can’t understand surviving unless you’ve had to… but if you have to, then you will. That’s being alive, that is, and even silver-spoon Cassandra — even crystal-covered Vivienne — would survive worse shit than even Sera has if they had to. They’d hate it, sure, but they’d get through it. Get over themselves, get through it. If they really, really had to? Yeah, they’d survive.

The other thing, though? The fear thing? That thing will kill you right off. The hunger and the cold and all the rest? That just makes you desperate. Desperate makes you mad, mad makes you mean, mean makes you tough. It’s all good. Being hungry, being cold, being desperate. All good. But being _scared_? Scared of shadows, scared of people, scared of magic, demons, holes in the sky? Doesn’t matter what you’re scared of, it’ll all break you just the same. You let the fear in, even for a second, and that’s it; it’ll stop you from doing all that other shit, the shit you need to survive. Can’t eat if you’re too scared to keep it down, doesn’t matter how hungry you are. Can’t get warm if you can’t stop shaking, doesn’t matter how many clothes you steal. That’s fear. That’s the thing that kills.

Cassandra makes it sound better, though. Like being scared is the thing that made her strong, the thing that didn’t kill her. Makes it sound like maybe all that armour wouldn’t shine quite so bright if it wasn’t forged in something like fear. Makes it sound poetic, almost, but then she’s good at that, isn’t she?

She doesn’t think she is, of course, but then no-one ever thinks they’re good at the stuff they really are good at. Sera’s heard her, though; middle of the night in Haven, when everyone else is asleep, when the whole town is dead to the world but Sera’s wide awake because it’s too quiet and the silence crackles like an echo of something she can’t quite remember. She’s heard the way Cassandra talks to herself in her quarters in the late late hours, reading words out loud, sometimes other people’s but mostly her own. She tries to make them prettier, Sera knows, tries to turn them into poetry. Sera has never quite been brave enough to go in there and tell her that they already are.

Fear isn’t poetry, but Cassandra makes it sound like it could be. Like anything could be poetry if you work it hard enough, make it pretty enough. She’s got a gift, Cassandra has, but she’d never believe it if you told her. Too proud, maybe too stubborn. Maybe just like Sera, like how she’d never believe it either if some Seeker in shining armour tried to tell her that she could be brave.

“Coward,” she says, because she doesn’t want to hear.

Cassandra smiles. Warm hands, warm eyes. “Indeed.”

*


	2. Chapter 2

*

Elfroot stings.

The Herald knows how to use it, of course. Frigging Dalish and their frigging herb remedies, isn’t that what they’re famous for? Of course she knows how to use the stuff. She knows how to rub it into a wound, knows what it does, how it’s supposed to feel, knows that it’s a good thing when Sera sucks in her breath and bites down on her tongue and refuses to let them see her cry, and she’s smiling like some kind of ghost when she leans in, all secretive-like, and whispers that it feels like being back home.

The word stings, too. _Home_ , like Sera would have any idea what that is.

She hisses, flinches against the sting. The word-sting, mostly, but the elfroot-sting makes a convenient excuse, and she doesn’t bother to make the distinction when Lavellan tells her that it’s supposed to sting, that that’s how they know it’s working. She speaks slowly, like she’s talking to a child, like Sera couldn’t possibly understand, and Sera’s too sore and moody to even care. There’s fire in her eyes, the Herald’s, as she looks at it, the wound and the stupid stingy plant, fire like the kind that comes out of her hand when she uses the mark, when she banishes rifts and demons, and looking straight at it makes Sera feel like she’s in the Fade.

“That’ll do,” she snaps, and shoves her away. Vivienne squeaks her outrage — _“how dare she mistreat the Herald so?”_ — but Sera ignores her. “I never wanted your stupid elfroot anyway. It’s not even bad. It’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine. So back off, will you?”

“Are you sure?” Sympathy looks sickening on her. Face of an elf, gone all righteous with some other religion’s words. _Andraste_ , Sera thinks, and the name stings nearly as bad as the elfroot. “It’s a long way back to the Crossroads, and I don’t want to have to carry you. Or, well, ask Cassandra to carry you. She’ll have my head.”

“I’ll have _her_ head,” Cassandra counters, but she’s got a weird look on her face too, a strange-looking thing that might almost be a smile, like the softness that lingers on Sera’s skin where her fingers were. “Perhaps both of your heads. I could have them sent to Commander Cullen as wall mounts for the Chantry.”

“Was that a joke?” Sera asks. “Like, was that a real proper joke? From her? You hear it, Heraldy one? An actual joke from the buttoned-up Seeker?”

Vivienne heaves a weary sigh, throwing her weight around like anyone asked for her opinion. “Cassandra, darling, do refrain from encouraging the deluded little beast. It might get over-excited and bite someone.”

“You volunteering?” Sera offers, quick as a whip. “Bet you’d enjoy it…”

Dutifully disgusted, Cassandra claps a hand to her face. “By the Maker.”

Lavellan, torn between laughing and trying to restore some kind of order, simply taps Sera on the shoulder and tells her to lie still. Sera does as she’s told for once, but only because it gives her a really great view of Vivienne’s outrage and Cassandra’s horror, and a not-so-subtle glance at the Herald’s bosom as she hovers over her. The sting is still sharp, though, and she tries to block out the panic as the slash of pain brings back memories of the moment, of the feeling, of wondering if the demon’s still in there.

It helps, a little. The elfroot, not the sting. The sting definitely doesn’t help, but the elfroot makes the heat feel less hot, makes Cassandra’s fingertips warmer and more welcome when they dart back to her side, the hard edges of armour less rough against her back and her shoulders where she still lies pressed against her. It makes her feel like the gash is just a gash, just a stupid silly wound like the thousand or so she’s had before. Makes it feel like maybe it’s not a big gaping hole with demons crawling in and out, like maybe it’s not so scary after all. It’s dull enough now that she can close her eyes and pretend that’s true, imagine that the demons and the magic are dying inside of her, imagine them boiling in her blood, screaming their death-breaths like she screamed when she saw them.

“Done,” Lavellan says after after what feels like forever. “Do you think you can stand now?”

“I could stand before,” Sera mutters, and takes a moment or two to absorb the last of Cassandra’s warmth, the last lingering flutters of her fingertips against her skin, the last ripple of strong iron armour against her back; she’ll be pulling away now, standing up again, and Sera isn’t ready to say goodbye to her strength. “You just didn’t believe me.”

“She’s stronger than she looks,” Cassandra agrees, and then she’s backing away just like Sera knew she would, edging out from under her and stretching out her muscles.

It’s cold without her, miserable, and Sera sulks as she follows suit. Standing, stretching, all of it. She wants to get out of here, wants to find a safe place to hide from the way they’re looking at her, the way she can still feel demons skittering under her skin. She’ll just disappoint Cassandra if she stays here, if they run into another of those stupid rift things, if they run into anything at all. She’ll just disappoint everyone, Cassandra and the Herald with that _‘you can do better, you can be better’_ look on her face, even bloody stupid Vivienne and her bloody stupid smirky face. She feels small and stupid, humiliated; she hates Vivienne, just like she hates all those posh Orlesian arseholes, but it still sticks like a stone in her throat to think of disappointing her. Well, more than she already has, just by existing.

That’s different, though? Disappointing her just by existing, that’s just luck. That’s just luck and irony and the Ferelden-sized space between them. Little orphan girl raised on the streets and the fancy court Enchanter with the whole of Orlais at her feet. Big difference there, and Sera’s never particularly cared about the way Vivienne sees her, the way she thinks she knows her. But screwing up? Being stupid? Giving her proof that she was right to cast all those silly stones? That’d hurt. Even with Vivvy. Maybe especially with Vivvy. It’s one thing to disappoint someone just by breathing, but another thing to disappoint them by actually _doing_ something.

Stupid, she knows. Stupid and selfish, and Maker knows they have enough other shit to be worrying about. Still makes her itch, though, doesn’t it? Still makes her feel like she’s worthless.

_Pride_ , she thinks, and the word tastes as sour as demon blood.

*

Back at the Crossroads, she catches her breath.

Well, tries to, anyway. There’s not much privacy in a camp full of refugees, but Sera’s been in far smaller shitholes with far more people and still found space enough to hide in. She’s small and bony, and that’s good for squeezing into tiny little places, dusty little corners with tiny crawling spiders and little cobwebs, small and forgotten and useless. She feels at home in places like that, broken-up little holes in the wall; they’re just like her, _useless_ , and so she takes them for herself.

There’s no shortage of corners like that out here, and nobody’s particularly interested in keeping an eye on her anyway. Easy enough to sneak off, easy enough to be forgotten. Not so easy to breathe, but little steps, right?

The Herald’s busy with the refugees, of course, handing out rations of frigging ram’s meat, and of course they’re looking at her like she’s the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen. _“Praise the Herald of Andraste!”_ they’re chanting, hauling her up on their shoulders and parading her around like Maker-knows-what. Never mind that it was Sera who killed all those rams in the first place, never mind that she’s the one who lost half her arrows to the sodding things; who needs a skinny city elf with a beat-up bow when you have the Herald of bloody Andraste handing out food and blankets and all that shit?

It shouldn’t matter, she knows. And it doesn’t, not really. Sera’s never done what she does for the credit, and she seldom sticks around long enough to get any. The fun’s in doing stuff, innit? Not in all those accolades and whatever else that rich tits live off. That might work for Lady Vivvy, even the Herald, but it’s never been her style and she’s not about to start now. Truth be told, she’s never really wanted to be hauled about on people’s shoulders like that. She;s not a big fan of high places anyway, and if they tried to bounce her around like that she’d probably chuck her breakfast all over them. Serve them right, probably, for all that pomp and ceremony, but it’s not exactly Heraldy behaviour, is it? Little wonder, then, that Lavellan and the others are happy to let her wander off out of sight, hidden in the dark corners where she can’t embarrass them.

Alone, then. She lifts her shirt, squints down at the place where the demon went in, where the elfroot took the heat away. The stupid little plant did better than she thought it would; it doesn’t look so angry as it did before, just a jagged line, sore and itchy with demon-memories. Probably leave a scar, though, and she’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Scars mean remembering; they mean seeing little white lines in reverse in a mirror and remembering why they’re there, the faces of the people who put them there. A reflection at just the wrong angle, and there’s a good day gone bad in half a second. Once it starts she can’t stop it: _memory_ , and all of a sudden she’s back there again, bloodied or battered or worse in some Orlesian shithole, some Fereldan back-alley, some no-place somewhere, and the little white lines won’t ever let her leave those places behind.

Most of the time, she doesn’t want to remember. Sometimes she does, though. Bad days, days when she feels like shit anyway, it’s good to see, good to look at herself and know that all that badness came from somewhere, that it’s not just _her_ , it’s all of it. It helps on those days, the shitty ones, to look back at the shit she’s been through and tell herself she came out of it okay. Looks a little wrong, sure, a little uneven in some parts, a little disfigured in others; she’s sure as shit not gonna win any beauty competitions. Not for her outsides, anyway, but it’s the inside that count, or so she lets herself believe sometimes.

She’s not like Vivienne, not pure and perfect and untouched, and sometimes that makes her proud. Sometimes it makes her feel small and stupid, like she’s sullied and dirty, like she’d leave a stain on Vivienne’s outfit if she got close enough. Sometimes she thinks about doing it, just to piss her off, but other times it makes her feel like she won’t ever be clean enough to touch pretty things. Sometimes, though, the difference makes her feel good. It’s a bit of fun, pretending like she’s better than that posh Orlesian tit who doesn’t know what living is, who doesn’t what it means to survive.

So, yeah, it’s good to remember sometimes. Good to look down and re-live a bad moment, remember the worst things so she can smile at the goof stuff again. Sometimes…

Demons, though? Does she really want to remember that? Does she really want to look at her body in the mirror and see the place where a demon touched, where _magic_ touched? Does she want to wonder all her life if it’s still inside of her, if the elfroot got it all, if she’s tainted or possessed or worse? A smear of blood, bruises, broken bones… that’s not anything that won’t heal fine on its own. Give it enough time and patience, it’ll turn out right, even if remembering it still hurts like shit. Not the same with demons, though; even just thinking about them is enough to turn her guts inside out. It makes her cold, makes her feel ill and twisted, and she doesn’t know if she could handle having a scar there to always remind her that they got to her, that they got _inside_ her, that they _touched_ her.

It’s not like when people touch you, is it? Not like dirty hands or dirty blades, skin turned different colours, blue and red and white, not like people you can just wash off. No, it’s _demons_ , and she can’t wash that off, she can’t, they’re _in her_ , and all she has to do is remember and they’re right there all over again. _Demons, demons, demons_ , and for as long as she can see the place, she’ll always feel it.

“Sera?”

She yelps, loud enough that the rotted wooden floorboards creak and shift under her. It settles quickly enough, the floor, but she doesn’t settle at all, and when she whirls about there’s a flush on her face that’s hotter than the wound ever was.

Cassandra, standing in the doorway with an odd look on her face. It’s like she’s uneasy and hopeful at the same time, like she wants something but can’t put her finger on what, and Sera turns her face to the floor, keeps her head down, uneven hair over her eyes so the stupid Seeker can’t see the way her face is twisted, the way it tastes like salt and stings like elfroot in a gash gone sick with magic.

“Piss-buckets, Seeker!” she mutters. “Don’t you ever bloody knock?”

She doesn’t need to look at her face to know that Cassandra’s frowning now, and she doesn’t need some fancy supernatural mark on her hand to sense that she’s worried, and she’s not sure which of the two she hates more.

“Apologies,” Cassandra says, careful and very quiet. “Are you well?”

“Course I am.” She swipes at her face, refuses to let the salt show, refuses to let anything show. Cassandra is the one who thinks she’s tougher than she looks; Sera won’t let her see that she’s wrong. “All good now, innit?”

“Sera…” Cassandra sighs, deep and heavy, a breath like the sound of her gauntlets hitting the ground.

Sera grunts, scratches at the wound, the thin red line that isn’t really a wound any more. Her nails are blunt, but it still stings, still feels hot with the memory of pain, of demons and their claws. She can feel Cassandra watching her, warm eyes on her hands, her ribs, the place that’s not so red or hot any more, and she wonders if she’s thinking about how the skin felt, the roughness all lit up beneath her perfect fingertips.

If she is, she doesn’t let it show; she doesn’t let anything show at all, no feeling and no thinking. She just wraps her fingers around Sera’s wrist, not nearly as warm or perfect as Sera remembers now that the gloves are back, iron like violence as they clamp down on her skin, clamp down over callouses and old burns.

“You shouldn’t scratch,” she says.

Sera rolls her eyes, wrenches her arm out of reach, even as every nerve inside her screams for the contact. “Itches.”

Cassandra’s a Seeker, so she can probably see the lie on her face, but she doesn’t call her on it. She’s so good, too good, and it makes Sera feel like a stupid heavy thing sitting on her shoulders, like she’s making it hard, like she’s weighing down all of Cassandra’s good intentions, weighing her down like the armour that makes her strong. Only she’s not armour, is she? She’s not solid, not made of iron, and she doesn’t make anything strong. How could she, when she’s so frigging weak?

Cassandra takes a step back, like Sera deserves the space. “If you would prefer to be alone, I can leave,” she says, though it’s pretty obvious that she won’t. “I simply thought to check up on you.”

“Why?” Sera mutters, and scratches at the wound again just to annoy her.

Cassandra shrugs. “You have been uncharacteristically quiet ever since…” She trails off with a helpless gesture, and Sera snarls at the memories, the resurfacing pain; it’s all inside her head, she knows, not really real, but that doesn’t stop it from _feeling_ like it’s real. “Sera, I…”

“Don’t say it.” Sera turns away, sniffles, fights the flood of salt before it can spill. “Don’t you bloody dare.”

She does, though. Of course she bloody does. “I am _worried_.”

It takes every ounce of Sera’s strength to keep from punching her in the face. “Well, don’t be.”

Her voice is shaking so hard it’s a miracle she can get the words out at all. _Demons_ , she thinks and tries not to shake all over. _Demons and magic and it’s in me, inside me, and why would you be worried about that? Why would anyone be? It’s stupid, you’re stupid, I’m stupid, I’m so frigging stupid…_

“Sera.”

“I said _don’t_.” She swallows the breath that won’t come out. “It’s all good, Seeker. It’s good, I’m good, everything’s good.”

Cassandra sighs, frustrated but knowing better than to push. “I’m glad to hear it,” she says, though it’s clear she doesn’t believe a word. “Because that was not the only such Fade rift. We have reports of them opening up all over Thedas, and it will fall to the Herald to close them as they appear. She is the only one who can do so safely.”

Sera grunts. “Sure.”

Cassandra’s eyes narrow, like she’s trying to figure out whether Sera’s really as disinterested as she seems. “I trust you understand what that means?” she presses. “If you truly wish to aid the Inquisition in our cause…”

She doesn’t need to finish. Sera gets it, and she hates that.

“This is gonna happen again, then?” she asks, and she’s too upset to even care that she sounds about half an inch tall, that she sounds like some stupid little child cowering behind her mother’s skirts. Her voice is so wobbly, so little, it’s a miracle Cassandra can understand her at all. “The whole ‘demon’ thing? It’s gonna happen again? And, like, again? And again? And—”

“I believe so, yes.”

Sera clenches her teeth, feels the panic start to seethe in her stomach. “Shit.”

Even though she’s made it pretty clear that she doesn’t want company right now, still Cassandra crosses to her side. Still she drops down onto her haunches, settles herself down, like they’re having a frigging picnic or something. It can’t be comfortable in all that armour, squatting on the floor of a derelict building just to get a little closer to someone who doesn’t even want her there in the first place, but she doesn’t complain at all. Strong, just like always.

“Sera,” she says. Sera hates how her name sounds on lips that aren’t hers. “Our situation is a desperate one, and growing more so every day. I understand your feelings, truly I do, but we cannot afford to lose ourselves to fear.”

“I’m not!” It’s an explosion, a spray of anger and spittle and probably denial. “You’re so frigging dramatic, Seeker. I said I was fine, didn’t I? I bloody _said it_ , didn’t I?”

“You did, yes.” Cassandra sighs again, and when she lowers a hand to Sera’s shoulder, it’s with the heavy weight of her gauntlets, armour pressing down like a threat. “Regardless, it is important that you hear me, and that you understand. If we are to work together for the Inquisition, I must know with absolute certainty that I can depend on you if the battle turns against us. And you…”

Sera doesn’t want to hear it. She’ll cry for sure if she does, and there’s no bloody way she’s going to let the Seeker see her all salt-stained and ugly. _Uglier_ , anyway. “Don’t.”

“ _You_ ,” Cassandra presses on, ignoring her. “You must know that, in the same situation, you can depend on _us_.”

“I don’t…” Sera swallows; how to explain to someone like Cassandra that depending on other people is dangerous, that that’s where half her stupid scars came from in the first place? How to make some stuffy-arsed noble see that it hurts to trust so much? “Look, just… get off, will you? I get it. Okay?”

“I don’t believe you do.” The words are a blow, strangling the tears before they have a chance to appear, and Sera’s almost a little grateful for that. “I cannot pretend to understand what your life must have been like, or to know the challenges you must have faced. But it does not matter here. There is no place for that kind of thinking in the Inquisition. Do you understand? We are not on the streets of Val Royeaux now, Sera, and we are not in the alleys of Denerim. You cannot live here as you lived there.”

“Mhm.” Sera’s throat hurts. Different pain, easier to fight. “Gotta be a team player. Gotta play with demons. Gotta be tough, gotta be strong, gotta be brave.” _Gotta be like you,_ she thinks, but doesn’t say so. “Got it.”

“No.” Cassandra makes a frustrated sound, a guttural grating in her throat. “True though it may be, that is not what I’m saying at all.” She takes a deep breath, holds it for about ten seconds, then lets it out very slowly. Controlling her temper, maybe, or just picking out her words. Hard to say when her face doesn’t change. “I am saying that we must all work with each other, and that we must all _protect_ each other. We all have weaknesses, Sera. Gaps in our armour that out enemies can exploit… and will, given a chance.”

“Don’t need to rub it in,” Sera mutters.

“We _all_ have weaknesses,” Cassandra repeats, all emphatic and serious and shit. “Myself included.”

“Get off.” It makes her smile, though, imagining it. “What, really? You?”

“Absolutely. My shield may protect me from fireballs and assaults from the front, but it offers little protection from flanking or sneak attacks. And I can hardly swing my sword at distant mages or archers, can I?” She’s smiling too, like she’s sharing some deep and precious secret. “As I said, we must work together. All of us. One person’s weakness is another’s strength. That goes for everyone, not only you. Does that make it clearer?”

Sera tries to grin. It’s weak and watery, not much of a grin at all, but it helps her to feel a little more like herself, or like the version of herself she imagines in Cassandra’s armour.

“So, what you’re really saying is, you need me to protect you from the big bad archers? Or stop you getting shanked from behind or whatever?” It feels like more than what it is, feels like Cassandra isn’t just offering some shard of herself, but giving Sera something that she can do, something that’s _hers_. “I could totally do that. I mean, you know, if you like.”

“I would like it very much. And in return…” Cassandra’s face goes soft then, really soft. Not soft like her hands, like her fingers, but soft like feeling, like the kind of feeling Sera doesn’t understand, the kind she’s never really known and definitely never understood. Soft feeling. Just looking at it makes her go warm all over. “In return, I will protect you from demons.”

“Yeah?” She doesn’t want to sound too hopeful, too scared, but her voice is shaking and it gives her away. “Like… really?”

“Absolutely.” Gauntlets touching her face, iron shields covering soft fingers, framing Sera’s jaw, her cheek. It doesn’t feel soft, not like the look on her face, but it does feel strong. Feels like a promise, like being a Seeker. “You have my word.”

Sera nods. “Good. Can’t stop you getting shanked if I’m dead or possessed or whatever.” She leans in, skinny limbs pressed against cool steel, lets Cassandra know that she likes the way she touches her, the way she talks to her. “Kind of want to hug you now. Is that allowed?”

“Not generally, no.” But she’s still smiling, and there’s something in her eyes that Sera recognises from all those years of wishful dreaming. _Home_. “But perhaps we can make an exception, just this once.”

The armour digs in, though, leaves marks on underfed skin, cuts into the places that blades and arrows are always too slow to catch. Sera lets it happen, lets the metal dig in and leave its mark, lets it ward off the spells and the demons and the things that haunt her. She lets _Cassandra_ dig in, lets her cut out a place for herself in Sera’s sullied skin, a place that’s big and brave enough to linger, to stick around even after this is over, even after she walks away and straightens her spine until it looks ready to snap, even after she pretends this never happened, pretends _Sera_ never happened. She can pretend all she wants back with the others, with her precious Herald and her Lady Enchanter, but Sera has her armour on her now, and that’ll keep her safe when the demons come back.

“Don’t worry,” she whispers, a reverent hum against strength and solidity and Seeker. “I won’t tell Varric.”

*

They don’t stick around at the Crossroads for very long.

It’s kind of nice, actually; most Chosen One types would want to stick around as long as possible, take in all the praise and glory and shit, enjoy being worshipped by the little people who don’t have anyone else to hang their hopes on. Elfy as she can be sometimes, Lavellan’s not much like that; she’ll take the praise when it’s offered, let the refugees parade her around like a hero, but that’s not why she’s here. She wants to get back out there into the wilds, get going, keep fighting the good fight instead of sitting around and listening to other people going on about how wonderful she is. Whatever Sera might think of all that elf shit, she has to respect that.

So, then. Ten minutes, twenty or half an hour, and then they move on. Head out west, or at least mostly west-ish, because that’s where the farms are. Farms means horses, and that’s why they’re here in the first place. It’s why Sera’s here, anyway; no-one told her anything about Fade rifts or starving bloody refugees. Last she heard, they were here for horses.

Anyway. A bloke named Dennet, that’s the guy they’re after, and from what little Sera’s been told he’s been left out there all alone on the farms. Once the fighting started between the bloody mages and the bloody templars, no-one bothered to check up on him… and to hear the Crossroads folk talk of it, he wouldn’t have wanted them to even if they’d tried. Easy enough to get there, Sera supposes, but it’s a whole lot further on foot than it looks on the Herald’s tiny little scaled-down map.

They’re walking for hours, or maybe it just feels that way Sera, shaky and sore like she still is. Could be. Could also be the fact that they can’t seem to get three steps in any direction without being run down by rebel mages or pissed-off templars or bandits or bears or Maker only knows what else. Everyone’s got an axe to grind, or at least it seems that way, and they’ve fought half a dozen fights before they’re even fully away from the Crossroads.

Sera keeps up pretty good this time, with the fighting and all. Even when it’s mages, terrifying magic-types with their staves and their fireballs and all that shit, it’s still a whole lot easier to pop off an arrow or two without a rift floating over her head and demons pouring out of it. Magic makes her feel sick, makes her guts and her chest go tight, but at the end of the day mages are still just people, and people die just as fast as rams if you put a shaft between their eyes. Easy enough to block out the sick feeling when you think about that, and easy enough not to think about the killing part so long as they deserve it. And, well, idiots chucking fireballs at innocent people? Definitely bloody deserve it.

It’s getting late when they finally get to the farms, late and dark and cold, so they set up a camp on the outskirts.

Sera’s never been good at that home-maker stuff, putting up tents and starting fires and shit like that, so she heads out by herself and sticks another ram in the nearby scrub. Supper, right? They’ve all got to eat, even holier-than-thou Vivvy, and it’s about the only thing she can do that the others can’t. It’s why they brought her, isn’t it? Why she’s here even though they can all think of a dozen idiots better suited for closing Fade shit? Lavellan picked her out specifically so she can stick stuff with arrows and haul it halfway across the Hinterlands, so why not put that to good use while she can? It’s not like Viv will let her within a hundred miles of her precious tent anyway, and at least this way she’s keeping herself busy.

Turns out, Viv won’t let her within a hundred miles of her precious supper, either. Sera has trouble imagining that a high-and-mighty from Orlais would be the kind to sniff at a decent side of meat, cooked good enough, but Vivienne won’t touch anything Sera brings back. Maybe because she touched it, maybe because she can’t shake the sight of the Herald reaching in and tossing out its guts to make it cookable. Whatever the reason, she won’t even look at it. Just sits there on the other side of the campfire, nibbling preciously on some grass or leaves or some other stupid tasteless shit. Well, that’s her frigging loss, innit?

Lavellan prepares and cooks up the meat in the Dalish style. Like everything elfy, it’s too much, over-done and a little greasy. It’s too much fat and not enough meat for Sera’s taste, but she gets it down easy enough once it’s in her hands; she learned too many times to take whatever she can get, and she’s never had the luxury Viv has to turn her nose up at something she doesn’t like. Good or bad or in-between, food’s food, right? Well, long as it doesn’t kill you; poison’s bad, but that’s a lesson you only learn once, even if you’re stupid. Everything else is fair game, though. Who bloody cares what it tastes like?

Cassandra sits close. It’s probably by accident; the Herald has to sit near the fire, has to keep turning the meat to make sure it cooks all even and shit, so that’s about half their space all taken up. She’s kind of obsessive about it, like most Dalish types, crazy about doing everything just right, and she doesn’t let anyone else near it. It’s _her_ job, and she takes it just as seriously as saving the world from Breaches and demons and whatever else. It might even be kind of cute, Sera thinks, if only it wasn’t so elfy.

Whatever. Point is, it means that Cassandra sits close to Sera. Close enough that they’re almost touching, that cast-iron armour brushes against the frayed edges of Sera’s clothes sometimes when they both shift at the same time, when they both catch their breath in the same way. It’s good, that; she can almost feel the way Cassandra breathes, or at least imagine that she can. The slow steadiness of it, all stoic and calm and Seekery. It makes her calm too, listening to it, imagining the way her chest moves under all that tight armour. Well, maybe not ‘calm’ exactly… but something good, anyway.

“How are you feeling?” Lavellan asks when she’s done, handing out ram’s meat to everyone except Lady Viv. “Is the wound giving you any trouble? I could fetch some more elfroot before we settle down to sleep…”

She’s so generous it’s almost disgusting, and Sera rolls her eyes over a mouthful of too much fat. “Piss off.”

“You shouldn’t address the Herald so,” Cassandra says, clicking her tongue.

“Save your strength, Cassandra, dear,” Vivienne quips from her corner. “You might as well try and teach a rabid wolf to quack. Wasted efforts, and to what end? Better to simply put the poor thing down before it hurts itself.”

“I can think of a few people I’d sooner hurt,” Sera huffs. “Got a whole frigging list of ’em. And guess who’s right at the top…”

“Such a charming creature,” Vivienne says. “Honestly, Herald. We really must discuss this tendency of yours to adopt every stray mongrel that follows you home.”

Sera rolls her eyes, tries not to laugh. Walked right into it, and she doesn’t even see it.

“I know, right,” she says, entirely too gleeful. “Bloody stupid, innit? But I told her, I said, _‘don’t worry, just give it a flea bath, it’ll come out right’_.” She takes another bite, too big for her mouth, because she knows that Viv hates that sort of thing. “And what d’you know, you did!”

Lavellan laughs. Like, really properly _laughs_ , out loud and everything, like maybe she does have a sense of humour under all that pretentious elf bullshit. “Sera!”

Cassandra is less than amused. Of course she is. Can’t have anyone insulting the Lady Enchanter; that’s just asking for trouble. “That’s quite enough,” she says, voice like steel.

It sours the mood more than Sera would ever admit, drags a great dark cloud down over everything, the kind of cloud that threatens rain or thunder, threatens things that aren’t good at all. It makes her think of those other things again, the things she’s been using her tongue to chase away, the things that can’t get her while she’s laughing at everything, while Lady Viv’s face is turning to curdled milk just because Sera dared to talk in her general direction. It brings all those things back, makes her remember, and she hates that Cassandra didn’t stop to think that this might happen.

It’s not that she ever expected the Seeker to _approve_ or anything; she’s too big for her breeches, too allergic to things like fun. Doesn’t matter the effect; she’d never approve of bad words or worse names. It’s just that she’d kind of hoped that she might get it. Like, _understand_ , even if she’d never actively encourage it. After their talk back at the Crossroads, it didn’t seem like so much to expect. But apparently it is, because Cassandra’s looking at her like that conversation never happened. Worse, like the one they had was completely different to the one Sera remembers.

_I need this,_ she wants to say, even let a little of the tear-salt out if it’ll get the message across. She doesn’t even care that Lady Viv will think she’s a baby, that the Herald will think she’s less than what she wants, that they’ll all judge her. She doesn’t care about any of that, she just wants Cassandra to understand. _I need to laugh at her. I need her to laugh at me. It’s safer. It’s_ safe, _Seeker. You’re the one who should get that. You’re the one who should get it. Why don’t you bloody get it?_

It hurts more than she’d admit that she doesn’t, hurts in a way that the demon hurt, a burning heat in her side that feels like something else, something _other_ , something that isn’t her. She wants to shake her, to make her see that this isn’t about _them_ , it’s about the other thing, the thing she won’t name, can’t name, but the words won’t come.

“Cassandra’s right,” Lavellan says, and the laughter’s gone out of her faster than a torch getting rained on.

Sera hears herself snarl. The anger’s on her in a flash, out of nowhere, a burst of flame and heat and fury that feels like a demon, like _rage_ , like the thing that opened her up, the thing that was inside her, the thing that took away pieces she’ll never get back. It scares her, but it’s easy to shove the scared part down when the anger’s got hold of the reins, when it’s in control. It’s easy to pretend she’s not scared when she’s so angry she might as well not be.

It’s not about this. She knows that, of course she does. It’s just an excuse, a way of dealing with all the panic and the tension, all the bad feelings that have been simmering and souring inside of her ever since the rift. It’s not real, this place the anger has in its sights, but it’s safe. It’s safe and petty and stupid, and it doesn’t hurt like the other places do. It’s safer to shaft a bastard between the eyes than try to go between the joints of his armour, safer to tie a mage by the hands than sit around waiting for him to get possessed. Safer, _safe_ , and it’s not about this at all, not about being insulted or affronted or wronged, but she has to pretend that it is because getting angry is the only way to be safe.

“Right,” she says. Her voice is very far away, like it doesn’t believe the shit it’s spewing any more than the rest of her does, but she has to, _she has to_. “Yeah. I see how it is. It’s okay when _she’s_ the one throwing punches. But when it’s me, it’s a different story, right? Can’t let the stupid little upstart have a voice, right? Don’t know what’ll come out of its mouth.”

“Quite right,” says Vivienne. “Very erudite, my dear.”

Cassandra reaches for Sera’s shoulder, her arm, any part of her she can reach in that heavy clanking armour, but Sera jerks out of reach before she can get a hand on. It hurts, the way she moves, the way she still acts like they understand each other, like they’re two of a kind, like she hasn’t just turned all of their perfect little moments into something horrible, something petty and stupid and _Orlesian_. It hurts, not like a blade to the gut or the demon swimming in her veins, but in a way that feels worse.

“Don’t touch me, Seeker,” she snarls, and Cassandra frowns. “For your own frigging sake, don’t you touch me.”

“Sera.” Her voice is a command, and despite her best efforts Sera stops in her tracks. “I was speaking to both of you. Lady Vivienne should not antagonise you as she does… but you should not rise to it either.”

Sera swings to her feet, upset. “You say that, yeah. You say it. I hear you say it. But it’s lies, innit? It’s bullshit. You can say it all you like, but I’m still the one you’re yelling at. Right? Still the _only_ one you’re yelling at.”

Vivienne’s smirking, like she’s been waiting for an opening like this all night. “Well,” she says, all smug and self-satisfied and sickening. “In your own words, darling… sometimes, you can be a _‘right bitch’_.”

That, by contrast, doesn’t hurt at all. “Knew that already,” she retorts. “Right proud of it, too.”

“Of course you are.” She shakes her head. “So, then, please do not lament your outrage when we address you like the brutish creature you are.”

Sera bristles, annoyed. “That’s not what I…”

The words stick in her throat, though, just like before. Because, yeah. It’s not about that. That’s the bloody point, innit? It’s not about the way they talk to her, or at least not about the way _she_ talks to her. It’s not about Viv at all, and it’s sure as shit not about the way they hate each other.

“You’re all bloody hypocrites,” she says, locking eyes on Cassandra. “Talk shit just to make yourselves feel important, make yourselves feel big and tough and… _shit_.” She shakes her head. “Easy target, am I?”

Cassandra sighs. Maybe there’s a part of her that does get it, or at least gets _something_ , because she’s not stupid. At least, Sera doesn’t _think_ she’s stupid. She knows what this is about. She has to. In some part of her, some tiny worthless little part of her, she has to.

“I apologise,” she says, speaking very slowly and choosing her words carefully. “I didn’t mean to point fingers at you. I simply… I believe that we should all try to get along, to see the good in each other. That is all.”

It’s cheap. Cheap like sovereigns thrown into the bloody fountains at Val Royeaux, like those piss-head nobles can just chuck money away, chuck _words_ away like they don’t mean anything. She would say that, wouldn’t she? Cassandra. She’s the one who’s been trying to see the good in Sera all day, who sat with her and touched her with those warm hands, strong gauntlets, with all of her. She’s the one who talked about being scared, about demons and magic, the one who let Sera believe that there might be other things she’s good at. Is that all that was, then? Just trying to ‘get along’ with someone who’s too much trouble to bother understanding?

“Fine,” she says aloud, spits the word like a curse, and there’s so much more she wants to say, but she’s too angry, anger that feels so much like rage, like the name of the demon, and she’s so terrified that this is _it_ and not _her_. “Fine,” she says again, more anger to chase the fear away, and then again. “ _Fine_.”

Cassandra sighs, like it’s some great big relief. She doesn’t hear the violence or the desperation, only the word. _Fine_ , like it really is. Her shoulders go loose, arms limp, like she’s unwinding after a big battle, like talking to Sera is so much bloody hard work. Sera wants to strangle her, wants to make her hurt like she’s hurting right now. She can barely even remember what started this, but it’s all she can do to keep her fists in her lap.

“Good,” Cassandra says, and tries to smile. “We are all tired, I think. It has been a long day, as I’m sure you’ll agree, and I think we’d all be served well by a good night’s sleep.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Vivienne says, because of course _she_ would bloody agree. Nice as pie, isn’t she, just as long as she’s talking with someone important. _Bloody bitch_ , Sera thinks, and almost chokes on the resentment. “It soothes my mind that we can always depend on you to be the voice of reason, Cassandra.”

“Right.” She knows better, of course she does, but she just can’t help herself. “Because _that’s_ why she’s saying all this shit. To soothe _your_ bloody mind. That’s what’s important, isn’t it Seeker?”

“Sera.” Cassandra’s voice is little more than a sigh, a soft soulful breath, and it makes her think of the Crossroads, of _‘I’ll protect you if you’ll protect me’_ , of feeling warm and safe and like she might matter after all. “This is what I was talking about. Precisely this. There was no call for that, no reason to lash out at Lady Vivienne, or myself.” She sighs properly, the kind of sigh that doesn’t sound like words. “You could have stilled your tongue. You could have shown some discipline, some restraint. You—”

“ _You_.” Sera’s throat hurts. All of her hurts. “You don’t get it.”

She doesn’t seem to care, either, and that hurts too. “Perhaps not. But even if that is true, it does not mean I’m not right.” She closes her eyes, just for a second, but it forces Sera to stare at her eyelashes. Long, strong. Sad but so pretty. “We have discussed this, Sera. Have you forgotten our conversation at the Crossroads so quickly?”

“Have _you_?” Sera shoots back.

“Not at all.” She actually looks wounded, like maybe she’s hurting too. Sera hates that, wishes she could hate her. “I shall say it again: it is imperative that we all get along. It is imperative that we all work together, that we _protect_ each other. The Inquisition cannot exist if we cannot co-exist within it. It is imperative, Sera. You know this. We discussed it, and I… I believed that you understood.”

“Yeah?” Her fists are shaking. “Well, I thought _you_ understood. I thought you got it. I thought you…”

But the words stick in her throat like ram bones, and she doesn’t even try to choke past them.

Why bother? They’ll see what they want to see, no matter what she says. Brutish creature and all that shit. Viv will see it because it’s easy, because it makes sense, because she uses language that would give people heart attacks in her precious Orlesian courts, or because she says shit like it is instead of hiding behind fancy words or fancy shields. Whatever the reason, doesn’t matter; Viv’ll find some way to justify what she sees, and Cassandra will see it because her precious Lady Vivienne does. And why bother trying to change that? Why bother trying to make them get that it’s not just self-defence, not just being mean to poor baby Vivvy, that it’s something more, something important?

There’s no point. Cassandra doesn’t get it, and she gets everything. She doesn’t get that it’s not just fighting, that it’s not just turning cruel words back on someone who deserves them, that it’s a fight she can actually _win_. Sera’s not smart, not book-clever like Viv or trained-from-birth like Cassandra, or all history-crazy like Lavellan and the rest of those bloody elfy-elves. She’s just _Sera_ , stupid small Sera, and she’s good at this because she has to be, because it’s all she’s got, all she’s ever had, because for too long it was the only armour that would ever fit her.

It makes her feel big. Talking shit to someone like Viv, the Lady Enchanter or whatever she’s called. It makes her feel tough, brave, like she can take on anything the world throws at her, even the bloody Breach. Nothing scarier than the look on Viv’s face when she gets hit with a zinger, right? Nothing as scary as that, not in all Thedas. She likes thinking that way, lets it bolster her when she’s so scared she can’t think straight. _I survived the Iron Lady; I can survive anything!_ She hates that Cassandra doesn’t get it, hates that she gets everything else — the pain, the demons, all the shit that comes with them — but still doesn’t get this. Why can’t she just frigging get it?

“You were so good,” she says, and she hates that there are tears in her voice. “You were so bloody _good_ , Seeker. Why did you have to go and ruin it again?”

Cassandra looks like she’s just been punched in the face, the one place all that fancy armour won’t ever protect, like Sera has the power to do something like that. It doesn’t make her feel big like talking back to Vivienne does, though; it just makes her feel like the worst person in the world.

“I apologise,” Cassandra says, and this time it sounds like she really means it. “It was not my intention to hurt you. I truly believed we had reached an understanding. I truly believed we were…” She trails off, shakes her head, like she sees it’s futile, like she knows she’s making it worse. Like Sera isn’t worth trying for any more. “I did not intend to…”

“Yeah.” Sera whirls around, stalks off to the nearest tent, doesn’t even care if it’s hers or not. “Neither did I.”

*

It’s true enough, innit?

Point of fact, she didn’t ‘intend’ to do a lot of things. Didn’t intend to freak out at the rift, did she? Didn’t intend to get gutted by a sodding demon, did she? Didn’t intend to let the others see her like that, all weak and pathetic and cut open like a frigging ram on the frigging fire. She sure as shit didn’t intend to let Cassandra get into her head, let her see her, let her understand, let her get so much and still not get the important shit. She didn’t intend to do any of that, did she?

But it’s too late to apologise now. Too late for her, and too late for Cassandra. Too late to pretend it never happened, too late to pretend that conversation never happened, too late to pretend it wasn’t a moment, pretend it didn’t make her feel better. Too late to pretend that didn’t make it hurt all the worse when it all went sour.

That’s the worst part, though, innit? It _did_ make her feel better. Lying there in her lap, all wounded and pitiful and shit, pretending not to listen while Cassandra talked about how afraid she was the first time she saw a demon, all those years ago. Like it’s so frigging comforting to get told _‘yeah, I was scared one time… barely even remember it now, though’_. Back at the Crossroads, too, sitting with her, letting herself imagine that maybe there really was a place for both of them in this weird new Inquisition thing, that maybe there really was stuff that Sera could do, only her and no-one else, that maybe she really could protect the big bad Seeker from archers and flankers and all the rest of it.

She was so good at that shit, Cassandra, so good at making Sera believe her, and it was so easy to swallow it. Tasted so good, and it’s always easy to swallow the sweet stuff. Sera wanted so badly to believe it, believe _her_ , so of course it went down easy.

Stupid thing is, maybe she does still believe it. A little bit, maybe. It’s hard, she supposes, for someone like Cassandra to really properly understand someone like her. She’s never been on the streets, never lived like Sera has, hand to mouth and up to her neck in other people’s shit. She’s never had to wonder what an empty belly feels like, much less live it, curled up in an alley all through the night screaming with stomach pangs. She’s never been there, doesn’t know what it’s like to go through life with only her wits and her mouth to protect her. How can she?

Sera wasn’t always big enough to pull a bowstring, wasn’t always quick enough to make a kill at a hundred paces, sure as shit wasn’t always tough enough to try. Wasn’t so many years ago that she couldn’t do much of anything at all. Back then, small and stupid and helpless, all she could do was put out her bottom lip and hope that someone cared.

Vivienne doesn’t care, of course, but Sera still feels good sometimes when she puts out her bottom lip and makes her care. It’s a different kind of pouting now, of course, and a different kind of caring. Vivienne cares because it zings, and Sera pouts because she can; there’s none of the the hungry half-starved urchin that she used to be, the pitiful little ‘feed me’ look that might’ve once earned her a coin or a hot meal or a kick in the head. Definitely not. Viv would sooner spit on someone helpless than feed ’em.

It’s different with her, rougher and more deliberate. It’s the kind of sullen authority-bashing pout that she never really got to use before now, the kind that would’ve got her dead or arrested if she’d had the guts to use it out on the streets. It gives her a different kind of power, the kind that fights fear. Pouting at the Lady Enchanter like a sulking teenager, probably like Viv’s own kids would, if only she wasn’t so frigid; gotta get laid before you can have kids, don’t you? Like that’d ever happen, right? Makes her feel like there’s a part of her that owns her.

And it’s not just that. Even the way Vivienne talks down to her, the way she curls her lip around an insult, the way she sneers. That feels good too, all of it, because words and smirking don’t hurt people like Sera. Not from the likes of her. Not from someone who doesn’t mean them. Maybe they hurt a little when it’s Cassandra, because Cassandra’s different, special, _painful_ … but from Lady Viv? No chance.

Point is, they’re both in the same place right now. Not the Hinterlands, not the bloody frigging Hinterlands with their bloody frigging rams and their bloody frigging Fade rifts… no, the _Inquisition_. They’re both here, both together, and since neither of them have a big green mark on their hand, they’re both on the same level, right? They both eat and drink and shit the same, both sit down with the same people, rub shoulders with the same nobs. Can’t be all holier-than-thou and better than someone when you’re both ass-deep in poison water, can you? So, at least in a weird kind of way, they’re kind of… well, the same. 

And that’s the thing, innit? Sera’ never been ‘the same’ before. Not with real people, and sure as shit not with people like Lady Vivvy. Only thing she’s ever been the same as is the frigging rats.

The anger surges up again, and she’s helpless to it. Tre’s a little pallet in the corner of the tent, probably supposed to pass as a bedroll. Not much of one, but it’s good enough for the job; better than a lot of places she’s slept, not that that matters right now. Only thing that matters is that it’s there. It’s there, it’s solid, and it can take a hit. So, of course, she punches it.

It doesn’t help, of course. Mostly, it just makes everything worse, because it’s just like before, innit? It’s just like the seething _rage_ , and the sick feeling that it’s not hers but the demon’s. Anger isn’t just anger any more, not since it got inside her, and getting her frustrations out on inanimate objects isn’t just about venting. Not now, not since _that_.

It burns in her now, makes her think of terrible things, makes her see it. It flashes before her eyes, memory like vision, like heat, the thing that flowed like fire on the ground, like fire in liquid form, like a volcano, but a volcano with claws. Claws so hot they made her black out, so hot they ripped a hole in her side, a hole as big and terrifying as the hole in the sky. She barely even remembers, but she sees it now as clearly as if it’s happening all over again. Demon, heat, fire, _rage_ , pain, then everything else: the sting of elfroot, the shame of disappointing everyone, Herald Lavellan and her stupid little elfy smile, Lady Vivienne and her scathing Orlesian words, _Cassandra_ …

Anger. Hot, red, _rage_. Like demons, like fear, like pain. Hard like armour, like gauntlets, warm like a Seeker’s hands.

Seeker. That’s a right laugh, innit? Cassandra’s not a frigging Seeker; she can’t find anything. It was all right there in front of her, but she didn’t see a bloody thing. It’s not like she said it would be, not like that at all. She can’t protect her, can’t keep her safe, can’t frighten the demons away. How can she when she doesn’t understand, when she doesn’t get it, doesn’t _see_? What kind of Seeker doesn’t bloody _see_?

She punches the bedroll-pallet-thing again. Doesn’t work, so she punches the ground instead. Hard, not enough rain, but not hard enough. So she turns, whirls around like a thing possessed, like Bull and one of his big giant axes. Whirls and punches the wall. Walls are hard, right? Walls leave bruises when you hit ’em, big blue brands on your knuckles, a mark like the Herald’s to say _I was here and I hurt_. Maybe Cassandra will see then, maybe she’ll understand if she can see, maybe—

But then, this is a tent, isn’t it? Tent walls aren’t hard, aren’t tough; they’re made of fabric, made of nothing, and they don’t stay standing when someone puts a fist through them.

So, yeah, the bloody tent comes down — _of course_ the bloody tent comes down, because who wouldn’t after some stupid frigging idiot put their fist through them? — and then she’s drowning, tangled in too much fabric, tangled and strangled and choking on her own pain, her own _rage_ , blood roaring in her ears and she’s so angry so angry so _angry_ , but it’s not the anger that screams in her veins, not the liquid fire of rage demons, but ice like a mage’s staff, like Viv’s eyes, ice that freezes and chills and kills. Ice, like _fear_ , and it scares away the rage but not the demon, not the thing inside her.

Punching doesn’t work. Just makes a mess, punching shit, so she screams instead. Screams like she did when it happened, when she was helpless and terrified. Screams, tears the air apart like the Breach did, like the rift did, like they tore through the sky, like that stupid frigging demon tore through her body and left her like this. Screams right from the gut, right from the soul, from all the dark and damaged places that her fists can’t reach. Screams like she screamed then. _Screams_.

She’s still screaming when they dig her out. Maybe ten seconds later, maybe twenty minutes, maybe a hundred lifetimes; she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t care.

The Herald looks sad, guilty, like she should’ve stopped things before it got bad, like it’s all her fault that Sera can’t control her temper, can’t control her fists; sometimes, she’s so bloody elfy it almost hurts, flashes like sunlight in Sera’s eyes, blinding and stupid, and she can’t even look at her. It’s that weight-of-the-world look on her face, the way she acts like everything’s her fault, like it’s her responsibility to fix everything from the hole in the sky to Sera’s stupidity. It would make her angry, if she had any of that anger left in her. She doesn’t, though; she’s raw, shattered, and whatever demon might still be crawling around inside of her, at least the rage is quiet now.

Cassandra doesn’t look sad, exactly, but there’s a kind of hurt in her eyes that’s new and strange. She’d never put her heart on her sleeve like the Herald does, would never let someone like Sera see what she’s feeling, what she’s thinking, but this is as close to it as Sera has ever seen. She’s angry, not like Sera was, but like good people are, angry at something like injustice, but since when did stupidity count as injustice? She’s miserable, too, frustrated and upset and… and, yeah, maybe kind of guilty too. That’s something, Sera supposes. Not much, but more than nothing. Even if she still doesn’t get it, at least she gets that she doesn’t. At least she gets _something_.

Vivienne… well, she’s not looking at all. Like Sera would’ve expected her too. She’s standing about ten paces back from the whole stupid mess, and though her eyes are locked on Sera’s as the others drag her out from the collapsed remains of the tent, there’s no trace of feeling behind them. No guilt, no compassion, not even her usual disdain; there’s nothing in her at all. She’s empty.

Sera stops screaming when the Herald calls her name, the howling cut off like a crushed artery.

“Sera,” she says, all slow and delicate, like she’s talking to a child, like Sera’s one of her stupid Dalish elf-babies, precious and small.

Sera doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want to be precious, doesn’t want to be small. She wants to be angry again, even if the anger makes her scared. She wants to be anything except what she is, anything except _Sera_ , and she turns her attention to the half-dead tent because it’s easier than opening her eyes and seeing the precious little thing that the Herald sees in her. 

“I’ll fix it,” she mutters. Voice hurts. Throat hurts. _She_ hurts. “I’ll fix your stupid tent. I’ll fix everything.”

She climbs out of the wreckage, the mess of fabric and other tent-bits. Her legs are shaky, and her head’s swimming; she feels dizzy, like she’s hit her head. Did she? She can’t remember. Just remembers being angry, punching, screaming. Just remembers the parts that hurt, not the reasons why. But she’s definitely feeling it. Feeling _something_ , anyway, and it takes a moment for her scrambled brain to catch up with the rest of her, realise that maybe it’s not a good thing to feel like a dragon’s just landed on you. She’s always been kind of stupid, though, hasn’t she? Always… and when Cassandra takes a step back and turns pale, mouth dropping open at the sight of her, Sera naturally just figures it’s because of the mess.

_Tent-bits,_ she thinks. _Stupid bloody tent-bits._

And then it hits her. She looks down, slow, unsteady, like in a dream. Like in the _Fade_. Down at herself, at the stupid bloody tent-bits, the fabric still tangled uselessly around her legs, the mess she’s made… and there it is, the truth of it, slamming into her like a demon, like a gash across her side, a blow to the head, like everything bad all at once, like the colour draining out of Cassandra’s, like the Herald’s weight-of-the world sadness, like the way Vivienne still won’t let herself feel.

_Bloody_ tent-bits.

Bloody, like she is. Her hands are wet with it, too, hands and shirt, and she must’ve been moving without thinking because she doesn’t remember doing it, doesn’t remember pressing her fingers to the place, the demon-touched place, the place where it went in, where it took her, doesn’t remember clapping them over the blood, the gash, the wound ripped open all over again.

She doesn’t remember it, but it must’ve happened, mustn’t it? It must have, because elfroot might be good for pain and shit like that, but it’s not so great when you’ve just had a tent fall on you, is it? Not so great at dealing with places ripped open by demons, is it? Stupid frigging elves and their stupid frigging herbal remedies. You can’t stop a demon with elfroot.

Vivienne watches her, and Sera’s blood — what’s left of it — runs cold at the look on her face. A smile, slow and spreading, but not just any smile. It’s an Orlesian smile, and one that Sera has seen more times than she can count on posh pricks like her; it’s the smile of someone taught from birth to believe that smiling is everything, that it is power, someone raised their whole life to perfect a smile like that, to turn it on and turn it up, to shake hands with other posh pricks, smile big and wide and bright, smile and think of drinking poison, of slipping it in someone else’s cup, of doing all sorts of terrible things. It’s a smile that promises so much, none of it good, the smile of someone who wants to rip the world to pieces.

“Well,” she says, all matter-of-fact and Orlesian. “ _Shit_.”

*


	3. Chapter 3

*

“No.”

She groans at the sound of her voice, shuts her eyes to try and block it out. It’s not supposed to sound like that, is it? Not supposed to be all breathy and hopeless and scared. Sera might be scared of demons, might be scared of magic, but she’s sure as shit not scared of _Viv_. Not now, not ever, no frigging way. There’s enough real shit out there to be scared of, enough real shit to make her voice go high like that, to make her legs go weak and fall out from under her. She’s seen a whole mess of things that are worth that kind of fear, but high-and-mighty court enchanters don’t frigging count, and she hates herself for sounding like they do, for letting Vivienne think that _she_ does.

“No,” she says again, but it doesn’t sound any better the second time. “Not this again. Not her. Not ever. You hear me? Not her, not ever, _not her_.”

“Sera.”

Cassandra’s changed her tune again, not that Sera’s particularly surprised. That’s what she does, innit? Say one thing, then turn around ten seconds later and make it into something else. The moment of horror that turned her face all pale and worried when she first saw the blood is long gone now, and in its place is the stoic Seeker’s steel that she wears so well, the warrior’s resolve. _Get shit done_ , isn’t that her motto? Sera would punch her for it, if she could only get her stupid watery legs back under her.

“Piss off, Seeker,” she says instead, and ignores the way her voice still shakes. “I said ‘no’.”

“I’m afraid that decision is no longer yours to make,” Cassandra presses, angry but regretful. “We are past the point of negotiation now, Sera, and we—”

“Bloody right, we are.” She flinches, fear sticking in her throat, hates that it feels like gagging, like choking. “She’s a monster. She’s one of them. Mages and their magic and their demons, and if you think for one frigging second that I’m gonna sit there and let her put her hands on me…”

“That’s enough.”

Of course it is. Because the bloody Herald decreed it so. At least Lavellan has the decency to look like she feels bad about it, though, which is more than Sera can say for Cassandra ‘Seeker-Of-Whatever-Suits-Me-Best’ Pentaghast. _Bet she didn’t sign on for shit like this,_ Sera thinks, and feels a little better for it. The big-breeches Herald of Andraste, parading around with little people like her, having to feel guilty for stepping down to her level. Better still, one of those bloody Dalish arses having to get down and dirty with some city elf. Almost makes it worth it, that. Almost.

“You too now?” She snorts. “Come on, big-breeches. What you got?”

“This isn’t a game, Sera,” she says with a sigh. “And Cassandra is right. That wound is clearly beyond elfroot or any other remedies I know. It needs proper healing, from a proper healer…”

“…and aren’t you just the most fortunate little thing, that you have one right here in this very camp?”

Vivienne, of course, looks positively sadistic. She’s standing there, still at a safe little distance, and grinning like the cat that got the cream. She won’t approach without permission, Sera can tell, and on anyone else that might be a gesture of respect, personal space and all that shit. From her, though, it’s like she’s making some stupid sodding point. _I could make you feel better just by wiggling my fingers,_ she’s saying. _But I won’t. I’m going to make you beg for it, my dear._

“Bitch,” Sera hisses, because it’s easier to focus on the sneer than the other thing, the magic crackling impatiently at her fingertips. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Quite the contrary,” Viv says. “I wished to go to bed an hour ago. Beauty sleep is so very important, as I’m sure you…” She tilts her head, like she’s thinking, like she’s even capable of thinking, then spends a stupidly long time staring at Sera’s face. “Well, perhaps not.”

Cassandra massages her temples, breathes slowly through her nose, like she’s using every ounce of self-control she has to keep from losing her cool. “Lady Vivienne. Might I suggest taking a more compassionate hand? Sera is—”

“You certainly may not.” She takes a long, graceful step forward, then another, carving a path between Lavellan and Cassandra like a shark coming at a sinking boat. “My hand is forged in iron, as you well know. It bends for no man.”

Sera can’t help herself; she bursts out laughing. “Bloody right. Wasted on men, innit?” She smirks, all smug and suggestive, everything she knows will make the buttoned-up bitch squirm. “Stick with me, Lady Viv. I’ll find a good use for those iron fingers. Bending optional.”

“By the Maker!” Cassandra looks just about ready to faint. Sera’s more pleased about that than anything else, truth be told; it still stings, thinking of before, and it’s kind of comforting to know that she can still have an effect. “That’s quite enough, Sera.”

“No, it’s not,” she says. “Not even bloody close. You can’t make me, Seeker. And you either, Lady Heraldy-bits. None of you can.” She doesn’t care that it makes her sound about three years old, that it makes her look stupid and small and worthless; she doesn’t care about anything, except keeping Vivienne’s creepy mage-hands away from her. “You can piss off and leave me here for all I care.”

“As much as I am starting to wish that were an option,” Cassandra sighs, “I’m afraid it is not.”

The foreplay’s over then, like it ever really got started, and the Seeker’s got her by the shoulders. She’s not gentle, not like her voice, cast-iron gauntlets sharp against Sera’s skin and fingers digging in hard enough to hurt. There’s no comfort in the contact, not this time, and Sera tries to fight back, tries to struggle like she’s been taught to do her whole life, but trying to struggle against someone like Cassandra is like trying to yank yourself out of quicksand: the harder she fights, the tighter Cassandra holds her. Her shoulders feel like they’re on fire, but so does the rest of her, and since when was a little pain enough to hold her down?

“Let me go!”

“This is for your own good,” Cassandra says, and she must really believe that because there’s pain in every part of her as she says it but still she doesn’t give in to the look on Sera’s face.

It’s leaning towards ugly, maybe even a little violent, when Vivienne steps in and separates them. Her touch is feather-light, unbearable, and she peels Cassandra’s hands away like they’re made of paper, like they’re not made of anything at all. It’s about the last place Sera would expect salvation to come from, and though she’s sure it’ll come with a steep price, it catches her so much by surprise that for a moment she forgets to be anxious.

“That won’t be necessary.” Her voice is like steel, the clang of combat. “I appreciate the gesture, Cassandra, darling, but I think I can handle this on my own.” _This_ , of course, means _Sera_ , like she’s a thing, like she’s not even a bloody person. “Now, be a dear and run along, would you? I believe a little privacy is in order.”

And just like that, the surprise salvation is gone, leaving in its wake something a zillion times worse. 

“Oh, no, you don’t…”

Sera lashes out, and without Cassandra holding her in place, there’s nothing to hold the violence in check. She doesn’t actually mean to hurt anyone — even she isn’t _that_ vindictive — but Vivienne’s too close, to deep into her personal space, and Sera’s short arms have a whole lot more reach than a long-limbed courtier would ever give her credit for. It’s something between satisfaction and embarrassment that hits her then, pride and humiliation in equal measure as her flailing fist catches Viv smartly across the face.

Viv, to her credit, doesn’t even blink. “Charming.”

Sera ignores her. “Don’t leave me alone with her!” she wails, and she doesn’t care whether Cassandra or Lavellan step in, so long as someone does. “She’ll skin me alive! She’ll bloody _kill_ me, she will! Don’t think for a second she won’t. You want my blood on your hands?”

“Oh, do stop prattling.” Vivienne turns away, the only reaction she’ll ever let Sera see, the only hint that the blow caused her any kind of pain. She keeps turning until her face is entirely in shadow, until Sera can’t make out any part of her. “Now, then, where were we?” 

_Right,_ Sera thinks. _Like you don’t bloody know._

“Ah, yes. My dear Herald, darling Cassandra. I’m sure the two of you have much to discuss. Plans for the day to come, if nothing else. And, if I may be blunt, I have no taste for an audience if your… ‘friend’…”

“No bloody friend of yours,” Sera gripes.

Vivienne, of course, carries on like she’s not there at all. “…if your _friend_ intends to continue along this line. It would simply embarrass everyone involved, and I’m sure you’ll agree the majority of us are above such nonsense. So, if you would be so kind as to take your leave…”

It’s not really a suggestion, though, is it? Of course it’s bloody not. Nothing’s ever a bloody suggestion with Lady Viv.

Still, though, Cassandra looks hesitant. Like she has a choice, or maybe like she wants to believe she has. Either way, she looks like maybe there’s a part of her that thinks Sera might be right, like maybe she’s a little scared of coming back to find a sad little elf-shaped blood-smear where Sera used to be and that stupid Orlesian smirk on Vivienne’s face. Well, it’d serve her right if that did happen, wouldn’t it? Serve her right for not paying attention when she had the chance, when Sera tried to warn her.

Lavellan, of course, can’t get out of there fast enough. “Good idea,” she says, like Viv’s just chucked some wonderful gift at her feet. Easy to grab freedom by both hands if you’ve got that luxury, innit? “We really should… I mean… well, I’m sure Lady Vivienne wouldn’t want us breathing down her neck… and, well, I’m sure Sera wouldn’t want us staring…”

It’s a lost cause. Just like always. “Some frigging Herald you are,” Sera mutters, rolling her eyes to keep from swearing. “And some bloody Seeker, too. You find my body in a ditch, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Vivienne smiles. Teeth bared, animal-hungry.

“I’m sure they will mourn the loss most grievously,” she says. “Now come along: we have work to do.”

*

She picks out a quiet place, a couple hundred paces from camp.

She keeps her hand clamped around Sera’s arm as they move — well, as _she_ moves, dragging Sera along like she’s cattle or something. Honestly, now she’s got it first-hand, Sera’s definitely starting to see where the whole ‘Iron Lady’ thing came from. That nickname they all give her, and the way she grins about it like it’s something good. Because, yeah, those fingers? Definitely tougher than Cassandra’s armour. Like, about a thousand times tougher. It’s like being squeezed by something supernatural, something _magic_.

The thought lands like a blow in her belly, painful and frightening. Because, yeah, that’s exactly what she is, innit? _Magic_ , and now Sera’s stuck all alone with her. The fear rears up again, hot and violent, and she yanks herself free with the unnatural strength that comes with being in-your-guts terrified.

“You’re not really gonna kill me, are you?” she squeaks, and her voice is as tight as Viv’s grip was, all strangled and choking and small. “I mean, I know I gave you a hard time and all, but…”

“Silence, please.” Her eyes are narrowed, dangerous, and that’s almost more of a command than the words themselves.

Sera, surprising herself almost more than Vivienne, does actually shut her mouth. Maybe it’s the fear gurgling in her throat, making her sound like a kid again, like she hasn’t sounded small and stupid enough already today? Maybe it’s the way she can hear echoes of that dirt-smudged little thing she promised herself she wouldn’t ever be again, that ragged little street-urchin that would never be allowed this close to a court enchanter. Then again, maybe it’s just that Viv really is as powerful as she thinks she is.

…probably just that, to be honest.

Regardless of the reason, she finds that it’s a whole lot harder to disobey her now that they’re alone, harder than she expected to keep up her facade of toughness, the badass-rebel image she’s been flaunting. It’s different when they’re all together, when the Herald is being all Heraldy and Cassandra’s being all Seekery and everyone is _doing stuff_ , but right now, in the middle of nowhere, just the two of them? Suddenly, Lady Viv is very very big, and standing in front of her Sera feels very very little.

“Good girl. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.”

It should sound condescending, shitty even, but it doesn’t. That’s weird, right? It’s got all the makings of something that should make her kick off, pretentious self-involved rich-tit shit, exactly the kind that makes her lose her temper and start tossing out swear-words in all directions.

She doesn’t, though, doesn’t even want to. There’s a weird kind of shimmer in Vivienne’s voice, something that sounds like _feeling_ , or what Sera imagines feeling would sound like if it had a voice. She can’t explain it and she definitely can’t describe it, but the one thing she knows for sure is that she’s never heard it before. Not in Viv, maybe not in anyone.

It’s not authority, not command or stupidity or flouncing or… well, anything like how she usually sounds, and though the words are exactly the ones she’d expect from her, still the sound is something different. It’s weird, how it doesn’t make her angry, and the weirdness sets her teeth on edge.

“Now, if you please…” She gestures with one arm, a wide sweeping arc that takes in the whole area. “Lie down. Make yourself comfortable, if you must, and try to remain still.” She runs a cynical eye over Sera, her face and her body; Sera feels scrawny and small, but she doesn’t give Vivvy the satisfaction of seeing her squirm. “And do remove those offensive rags. For both of our sakes.”

It takes Sera an embarrassingly long moment to realise that it’s because she wants to get a good look at the wound, not because she wants to see her topless. It’s a fair reason, of course — hard to see anything through a shirt as torn-up and bloodstained as hers — but imagining the alternative is hilarious. That’d really be something, wouldn’t it? Lady Viv, all high-and-mighty and stuck up her own arse, the jewel of Orlais, sneaking secret peeks at some skinny little city elf. Such a frigging scandal; those court bastards would never let her live it down.

It makes her brave, thinking like that, and it’s more than she can do to keep quiet. “Enjoying the view?”

Probably not the smartest idea if she wants to keep all her limbs attached, but it stops her thinking about other things. Stops her from drowning in the crumple of fabric as she tosses her shirt to the side, a bloody torn-up mess that leaves her feeling way more exposed than it should do. Stops her from thinking about the grass, too, and the way it’s all itchy and uncomfortable under her. Most of all, it stops her from thinking about herself, the parts of her that Vivienne sees, the parts she’s staring at. Shirt off, on her back; not many women get to see her this way without showing off at least as much of themselves too. But of course Viv is _Viv_ , and all those heavy Orlesian clothes suddenly look really fancy next to Sera’s torso, next to the old scars and older birthmarks, next to the lines and ugliness staining her skin.

Vivienne probably looks perfect under all those layers and shit, she thinks. She’s never seen her naked, of course, and most likely never will; she’s not like Cassandra who doesn’t care, who would probably even let that tight-arse Cullen see her in her smalls if the situation was dire enough. Cassandra’s got more important things to worry about than who sees her shirtless, and Sera’s snuck more than her share of glances when the good Seeker towels off after those sweaty training sessions of hers. She doesn’t care who watches, and she sure as shit doesn’t care what they think. Sera admires that, almost more than the glistening torso.

It’s not like that with Viv, though. Sera doesn’t doubt that her torso glistens too, probably powdered with gold dust or some such shit, but it’s all just in her head. Never seen it for real, probably never will. Imagination can be a powerful tool, though, and it doesn’t take a genius to make good use of it, especially when the evidence is right there. No-one gets a face as gorgeous as Viv’s if the rest of her isn’t gorgeous too.

 _Shit_ , Sera thinks, and scrambles for something else to say.

“I believe I said ‘silence’,” Vivienne snaps, cutting her off, or maybe just responding to her prior outburst.

There’s a quirk at the edge of her lips, a hard angry twitch that says she knows exactly what Sera’s been thinking, what she’s imagining. Sera swallows, and when she apologises it’s almost with sincerity.

“Yeah. Sorry ’bout that. Not really good at the ‘silence’ thing.”

“That much is painfully apparent.” Vivienne sighs. “Very well, then.”

Well, that was unexpected. Sera sits up a little, leans back on her forearms. “Wait, what?”

“You heard me.”

She did, of course, but that doesn’t make it any easier to make sense of it. Has to be a trap, right? Frigging has to be; Lady Viv never says _‘very well’_ to anyone, and she’d sure as shit never say it to Sera.

“What, really? Just like that?”

“Just like that, yes.” She sighs again, but it’s a different kind of sigh now. Less derision and more… something else. Something different, like the weird indefinable _something_ she had earlier. “If it will keep you from screaming your sordid curses at the Breach when I try to help you, by all means speak as you wish. But please do _try_ to enunciate.”

Sera frowns. “No, thanks. Not particularly hungry.”

“Maker, give me strength…” Vivienne groans, and the look on her face is a right picture.

She lets it lie, though. Doesn’t explain herself, but she doesn’t call Sera out on being an ignorant whelp either. She just crouches wordlessly at her side, all slender and beautiful and shit, and Sera feels very small and very ugly. She’s never been particularly modest, never particularly cared what people saw or what they thought about her. Kind of like Cassandra there, maybe, but it feels very different here and now. Lady Viv really is something apart, something unimaginable, and Sera’s just a twitchy little street-rat with scuff marks on her skin. Small, ugly, stupid; she wants to hide, wants to disappear, wants all of the stupid itchy grass to rise up like a barrier until Viv can’t see any part of her.

“You’re too good for the likes of me,” she hears herself say, and hates herself, hates that it’s true, hates that she’s too weak to keep the words inside.

“I couldn’t agree more.” Vivienne is smiling now, holding up one hand with the fingers spread wide. Graceful and very long; if she was anyone else, Sera could have a lot of fun with those iron fingers. “It does you some credit that you’re willing to admit it.”

“It’s not a _good_ thing,” Sera mutters. “Doesn’t mean you’re a princess or nothing. Just means you’re a prig.”

Vivienne shrugs. “I make no claims to royalty, my dear. Frankly, the politics would be more trouble than they’re worth. Though I’m sure darling Cassandra knows more about that than I…”

It’s supposed to be an insult, Sera can tell, not just to Cassandra but to Sera too. Viv’s observant; if nothing else, she’s got that going for her. She can’t have missed the way Sera looked at her precious Seeker, or how quickly the anger came when she thought she’d been betrayed. It’s such a frigging rich-tit way of doing things, but it still feels like a stain on Cassandra’s honour. Stupid, right? Like she even cares after before. But then, maybe Sera’s got it worse than she thought, because there she is scrambling to the Seeker’s defence like a lovesick puppy.

“Get out. She doesn’t want anything to do with that shite.” She feels silly, embarrassed, but she can’t help herself. “She’s not like _you_.”

Vivienne hums, a contemplative rumble in her chest, like she’s actually thinking about it, like Sera is actually worth that much. Feels weird, being deemed worthy of anything by Lady Viv. “A pity. But true enough, I suppose.”

Her hand is warm against Sera’s side, warm and very solid, and Sera wonders how it got there, _when_ it got there, but she’s too busy reeling from _‘true enough’_ to pay it much attention.

“You what?” she blurts. “Did you just, like, admit that I was right about something?”

“Why not?” She makes it sound so simple when she says it like that, like it’s not the weirdest thing to happen since the hole in the sky. “I’m not a complete monster, you know. In fact, you’ll find that I can be quite rational. A valid point is a valid point, no matter how crude the tongue that shapes it.”

She’s smiling, looking so bloody pleased with herself, like she’s just won a game of Wicked Grace or something, like the whole frigging world is just a game, like it always was. And maybe that really is true for her, Sera thinks; she wants to reach up and tear that smugness out of her, wants to scratch the smirk off her face, leave a mark on that flawless beautiful skin until everyone can see that she’s ugly inside. She wants to make her see, make her understand that the world isn’t a game, that _this_ isn’t a game, that it should matter. She wants to hurt her, hurt her like the demon place hurts, like everything hurts.

But she doesn’t. In part because she still has some shred of self-control left inside, in part because Viv did say she was right about something, and a back-handed compliment is still sort-of a compliment. Closest to one she’ll ever get from Her Lady Enchanterness, anyhow.

Mostly, though, she doesn’t take a swing because she _can’t_. She can’t sit up, can’t reach up, can’t move at all, and the panic lands in her chest like a blow. She’s _stuck_ , paralysed, frozen, as if by—

—magic.

 _Shit_.

That’s all it takes, the sickening realisation of what’s happening, what’s really going on, and then she’s screaming all over again, just like back at the rift, like all that talking never happened. It was always about this, wasn’t it? Always about _magic_ , about sparks of light and shimmers of things that hurt, and it doesn’t matter that it’s Viv, that it’s just some stupid posh tit laying hands on her, that she’s healing and helping, closing a wound not opening one. None of that matters at all because it’s still _magic_. It’s _magic_ , and isn’t that what brought her here in the first place, _magic_ and _pain_ and _demons_? Isn’t that why she’s here, isn’t that why they’re both here?

“Stop!” she howls. “What are you doing? Stop!”

Vivienne looks strained, almost like she’s hurting too. How can she be, though, when she has all that awful stuff inside of her? “I’m sorry, darling.” She even sounds sincere. _Bitch_. “Truly. I did try to distract you…”

“Is that what that was? Is that—” She cuts herself off with another scream as the terror rips through her anew, so much more brutal than the magic. “All the agreeing? All the playing nice? Just a frigging distraction? Just trying keep me talking so I wouldn’t notice what you were doing to me?”

But she did notice, didn’t she? And now that she has, she can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop _feeling_ it. Magic on her skin, in her blood, inside her. Magic, just like the demon, _inside her_ , and she tries to scream again but her throat is choked by bile and nightmares.

“Sera.”

Sera tries to sit up. Tries to move. Tries to _breathe_. “Let me go, you evil bitch! _Let me go_!”

“No.” There’s no room for debate, no room for anything; her voice is iron, just like her fingers. “Cassandra was right, my dear: painful as it is, this truly is for your own good.”

“How?” Sera chokes. “How is this _good_? You’re _torturing_ me!”

“I am _healing_ you. And I will not have my name besmirched in such a manner.” Her expression doesn’t soften, but her voice does, metal melting into something malleable. “I realise your comprehension is sorely lacking, my dear, so I shall put this in the simplest possible terms: _you mustn’t move_. Healing magic is delicate and extremely fragile, and I will not allow you to harm yourself by panicking like the mindless fool you evidently are.”

Sera whimpers, because it’s all she can do. She doesn’t care any more that it’s Viv, that it’s _Lady_ Viv, that she’s just spilled a whole speech full of insults that want answering. She doesn’t care that she’s so much better than stupid scared little Sera, that she’s big and graceful and beautiful, that she’s everything Sera isn’t. She doesn’t care about anything except what’s happening, except the lights surging up in the space between those iron fingers and Sera’s blood, except the look on Vivienne’s face, sobriety and strain, except the _magic_ that’s going to kill her. _Magic_ , and she is so frigging scared.

“Please.” Her voice is a rasp, aching and urgent. “Let me go. _Please_.”

Vivienne looks away; there’s a flash of pain in her eyes as she does it, like she knows, like she _sees_. “You know that isn’t possible,” she says. “Even _you_ are not that stupid.” Her lips twitch, but don’t quite manage her trademark smirk. “Now… if I recall correctly, I believe you were telling me how much of a bitch I am.”

It’s not exactly subtle, the way she tries to distract her again, the way she turns the conversation back to the one thing that doesn’t make Sera choke on her own fear. It’s not subtle, and maybe if she’d been a little more self-aware Sera might’ve realised that it’s actually kind of thoughtful. As thoughtful as someone like Viv could ever be, anyway. Not that it matters, because Sera’s so sick with terror that she doesn’t care about anything. Subtle, thoughtful, whatever. All she hears is _bitch_ and all she thinks is _yes_.

“You are!” she grits out. She’s crying, tears staining her face and getting into her hair, and she still can’t move to wipe them away, can’t move to hide them from Vivienne’s prying eyes. “You’re a bitch, and a liar! You—”

“Yes?” Her eyes dart down to her fingertips, to the wound, the place where the magic and the pain clash against each other in impossible colours. It’s just a moment, a flicker, but Sera notices just the same. “Do go on, Sera, dear. You know how I enjoy your mindless prattling…”

“No, you don’t! You _hate_ my mindless prattling. You think it’s stupid. You…” She chokes on a fresh wail. “You think _I’m_ stupid.”

“Quite the contrary, in fact.” Briefly, impossibly, that perfect Orlesian voice hitches; it’s almost imperceptible, a shimmer more than a crack, but it’s the only flaw Sera’s ever seen in her. Maybe it’s the only flaw anyone else ever has, either. That might make her feel special, if she could still feel anything. “To tell the truth of it, I think you have the potential to be quite brilliant.”

“Get off.”

“I’m quite serious. If you’d only deign to apply yourself once in a while, you could be quite formidable.” Sera opens her mouth to ask her what game she’s playing now, what she’s trying to do, but Viv doesn’t give her the chance, changing the subject so fast that Sera’s head starts to spin. “Ah. There we go.”

“There we…?” Sera blinks, frowns, realises she can flex her fingers.

“ _Go_ , my dear. There we _go_. As in, done. Finished. Complete.” And there’s that self-satisfied smirk, like it never left. “That wasn’t so terrible now, was it?”

She pulls away, iron hands and all, and almost before she realises that it really is over, that she’s free and whole and can move… before she realises anything at all, Sera finds that she’s already on her side, curled up so tight she can’t breathe, bare arms pressed against the place where the blood is gone, where the demon’s gone too, where the flicker and crackle of magic has left her clean and healed and exposed. Exposed, just like her body, exposed and open, and she should care that Vivienne is watching, that she can see just how pathetic Sera really is, just how weak and small and stupid; she should care, should at least think about it, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t think at all.

Vivienne’s still talking above her, voice weaker than Sera’s ever heard it. She sounds so much older than she looks, so much older than Sera could ever have imagined she could sound.

“There, there,” she says. “It’s over now.”

There’s a hand on her shoulder, thin and strong, _iron fingers_ , and Sera flinches away so hard that perfect Lady Viv almost loses her balance. It’d be a wonderful sight, if only she had the strength to pull up her head and watch. She doesn’t, though; as it is, she barely has the strength to keep hugging herself.

“Don’t touch me.” It’s a plea, just as weak and pathetic as before, hoarse and shuddering and all the stupid things Viv always saw in her. “Don’t ever touch me again, you bitch. You hateful, horrible, awful…”

“Very well.” There’s a weird kind of sorrow in her voice, that rich Orlesian voice that’s probably never known real sorrow in its posh pampered life. Sorrow, like she’d know what that means. “Vilify me if you must, if it will make you feel better. You’re not the first, darling, and you certainly won’t be the last.”

Sera sobs into her fist, teeth leaving marks against her knuckles. “Horrible,” she whispers. “Horrible, awful, horrible…”

“And worse besides.” Vivienne stands, disturbing the air between them, and Sera presses her hands to her ears to block out the sounds of her footsteps, as delicate and fragile as her magic, as she steps back. “You’re perfectly welcome to paint me in whatever crude colours you like,” she says. “The blacker, the better, of course. Dark colours chase the demons away so much easier, wouldn’t you agree?”

Sera chokes. Hates herself, hates Vivienne, hates demons most of all. “Like you’d know anything about it.”

Vivienne laughs, a high Orlesian laugh. “Why, of course I do! You cannot possibly think that your petty little insults are a one-sided affair.”

“A what now?” The words come out like a sniffle, like a baby.

“Come now, my dear,” Vivienne presses. “I would hardly indulge your absurd childishness if it didn’t serve me just as well.”

Sera raises her head. Tear-stained, hysterical. “What?”

“Surely even _you_ are not so naive as to believe you’re the only one who knows what those creatures are capable of. I know far more than you do, let me assure you, and the things I know would put your ill-educated imaginings to shame.” Her eyes are on fire, frightening but also kind of frightened. Makes her look weird, look _human_. “We all have our burdens to bear, my dear. Things that make the journey weigh that much heavier. Thoughts that freeze our blood at inopportune moments. And there is no shame in taking what small comfort we can when those burdens bear down upon us.” The fire in her eyes turns to ice in a heartbeat, bitter and biting as she studies Sera’s face. “…though, Maker knows, it leaves much to be desired.”

She’s standing a few paces away, distant but closer than she’s ever been before, and the look on her face is soft and impossibly beautiful, not the least bit Orlesian. She looks almost like a _person_ , a real person, the kind of person that Sera might see on the streets, the kind of person she might feel something for. It’s only the clothes around her, the swish of her hips, the slender lines of her bodice, that give her away. The attire and the attitude; she’ll probably never lose those, not in a million years, but there’s enough of the other stuff flickering underneath that Sera can almost let herself wonder what sort of person she might be if she ever did. It’s only a moment or two, but she can almost let herself imagine that those things are not there at all. Not _Lady Viv_ , just _Vivvy_.

“You will not speak of this to anyone, you understand.”

Sera snorts. “Not a word,” she says, and wonders why it came so quick.

Viv shakes her head, and just like that the flash of humanity disappears. She’s the Lady Enchanter all over again, like that other person never existed at all. “What am I saying?” she chuckles. “They wouldn’t understand your blathering even if you tried…”

Sera huffs, and the flush of anger gives her strength to get to her feet, to stand up, if a little shakily. It’s more than she would’ve thought herself capable of a few moments ago, and it spurs her on a little more that she has frigging _Viv_ to thank for that.

“Bloody bitch.” This time, saying it feels good.

Vivienne smiles. As bright as Cassandra’s armour, and just as strong.

“As are you, my dear. As are you.”

*

She leaves her standing there, of course.

It’s probably a keeping-up-appearances thing, obnoxious and self-involved and all that rich-tit shit. Can’t let the Seeker or Heraldy McHerald see that Viv might have something in common with down-and-dirty Sera, sure as shit can’t let them see that they’re more similar than anyone might’ve thought. Well, not similar, exactly — neither of them would want that — but close. They _share_ something, something that not even Cassandra really gets. And, yeah, of course Viv doesn’t want that getting out. 

It would make things weird, wouldn’t it? Make things awkward the next time they go at each other, if everyone else knew what it really means, what it’s really about. It’d make things _complicated_ , and while Sera suspects that Viv likes ‘complicated’ a whole lot more than she’d ever admit out loud, isn’t the whole frigging point of this to keep it simple, to have something not-complicated to fall back on when the bad stuff falls on them? Complicated screws it all up, makes it all serious, and there’s enough seriousness out there already, just waiting to chew their faces off. No point adding something that’s supposed to be the opposite.

So, then, though she hates that it means she’s the embarrassment again, Sera stands there by herself, lets Viv have her moment of heroism, the harrowed healer returning triumphant from a moment with a difficult patient. Let her play that stupid game if she wants to. Sera doesn’t need their approval.

Alone, though, she feels bad. She’s shivering, flinching at every little sound that passes by, desperately trying to figure out whether the grinding in her stomach is the echo of magic or just the fear that won’t leave her alone. She doesn’t feel good, doesn’t feel right. Demons and mages and Maker only knows what else… so many things have put their hands on her, done _things_ to her, and isn’t she supposed to be able to stop them? Isn’t that why she picked up a bow in the first place? So she could stick a guy in the face the next time he tried to put his hands where they weren’t wanted? Isn’t that why she’s here?

But that’s just it, innit? You can’t fight shit like that. Demons, mages, whatever. Stick a demon in the face, he keeps coming. Cut off a mage’s hands, she’ll still shoot fire with her eyes. A wound’s not gonna stop festering just because some elfy-elf rubbed elfroot in it.

And that’s another thing. The demon, the way it went in, the horror and the pain… Sera doesn’t even have the wound to remind her of that now. She doesn’t even have the line cut out of her side, the little jagged thing that might’ve turned into a scar, another burned-in memory she can’t escape from. She doesn’t even get that now, because bloody Vivienne came in and took it away. Didn’t even ask permission, did she? Didn’t even bloody say _‘if I may…’_ like Cassandra would have done. Didn’t say anything at all, just took it away like it was hers in the first place, fixed it all up like it never happened, then smiled like that made it okay.

But it’s not okay, is it? It _did_ happen. The demon, the jagged line, the wound that isn’t there any more. They _happened_ , and they happened to _her_. Sera, not Vivienne, and Viv doesn’t have the right to take it away without asking first, doesn’t have the right to deprive Sera of another scar she might have needed. You can’t undo a thing by making it invisible; the demon was _there_ , it was in her, and no amount of enchanter magic is going to change that. It’s cruel of her to pretend like it’s all over now just because she can’t see it. It’ll only make it worse when Sera looks back and remembers that Vivienne forced her way in too.

The strength that kept her on her feet disappears like rushing water, fast and sudden and loud, and suddenly her legs are water too, gone out from under her, and she hits the ground with a moan.

She’s not sure how long she stays there, hunched forward, hugging herself and trying to stop the shivering, trying to keep that awful feeling from surging up and overwhelming her. It’s easy enough when Viv’s there, when they’re all there, her and Cassandra and the frigging Herald, even Varric or that self-righteous arsehole Solas. It doesn’t matter who, not really; the others might not understand like Vivienne does, might not feel the same pull to being cruel and being mean, to fighting with words in those nightmare moments when the fear stops them fighting with anything else. They might not get it, the others, but they get the job done nearly as well. It’s like Viv said, or didn’t say but still sort of _said_ , in her evasive Orlesian way: better to be hated, even reviled, than alone and afraid.

And that’s her right now. Alone, afraid. Useless and worthless and there’s no-one to shout at, no-one to hate or to hate her. No Viv, no Cassandra, nothing. Just her and the memory of a demon that disappeared from her skin, the memory of being touched, of being helpless and held down, of magic inside her, magic all around her, of so much _magic_ , and why can’t she breathe? Why can’t she move?

 _Stop it,_ she thinks, and her inside voice is so much calmer than the rest of her. Sounds like Cassandra, talks clear and slow like Vivvy. _Stop it, stop it, stop it. You were doing so good. You had a moment and everything. You were doing so good and everything was okay. Everything was fine, it was fine, and you don’t get to go back there now. You don’t get to think now. Not now, not thinking. Andraste, please, not that…_

But she can’t stop it. She never could. She can’t stop herself from thinking now that she’s started, can’t stop it any more than she could have stopped the demon from coming at her, any more than she could’ve gotten up and broken Vivienne’s spell when she was held down. Those things were bigger than her, tougher and stronger and _more_ ; that’s why they terrify her. It’s why thinking terrifies her too, because that’s bigger than she is too. Those dark places inside her head, the places that twist things into other things… she can’t stop it, can’t hold it back.

It holds her instead. Holds her, like Vivienne did, like the fear does, and that’s a whole new breed of scary. That’s demon scary. Thinking takes her by the throat, like panic, like all those things she can’t fight. It’s the same feeling that turned the world white, that made everything go fuzzy when the demon came at her, the feeling that landed her on her back with a gash across her side and blood sizzling like the Fade in her veins. It’s the same part of her that couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight when some magical something stole her scar and pretended it was healing.

 _Thinking_. It’s just a demon by another name.

*

“Sera?”

 _Cassandra_. Can’t get any worse, can it? She huddles in tighter, presses her chin close to her chest, tries to get small, get invisible. “Just… just gimme a minute, yeah?”

The air shifts beside her, the iron clang of armour, and she doesn’t need to look up to know that Cassandra is sitting down, making herself comfortable. Doesn’t matter if Sera wants it, doesn’t matter if _Sera_ isn’t comfortable; that never mattered to her before, did it? Didn’t matter back at the Crossroads, and it sure as shit didn’t matter afterwards, so why start now? Comfort; just one more thing that’s all well and good for people who aren’t—

“ _Sera_.”

She hates her name when it sounds like that, like something small. She hates her name, hates the way other people say it, like it’s something to be ashamed of. Like _she_ is something to be ashamed of. She swallows, shivering harder, and wishes she could put that into words, wishes she could make Cassandra’s name sound like hers does, like something worthless. _Cass-ahhhhn-dra_. A name like that can’t ever sound worthless.

“I don’t…” The word is a tremor, like the ones shuddering through her body. “I don’t want to talk about it, Seeker.”

“I understand that, Sera, but—”

“No, you don’t.” It gives her some small shred of courage, saying that, and knowing who she’s saying it to. She’s not strong enough to sit up straight, but she’s strong enough to keep talking. “You don’t get it at all. You’ll never bloody get it. Look at you. Just… just frigging _look at you_. You’ll never understand, never know how it feels. You can’t, you won’t, you…” She shakes her head. “So just stop trying. Okay? _Stop_.”

It’s all the things she wanted to say to the demon, all the things she tried to say to Vivienne before she got choked off, silenced by panic and that soft Orlesian voice, by common ground she’d never have imagined. It’s all the fear and the horror, the terrible feeling that’s been gnawing at her insides ever since they stumbled into that rift, ever since she looked up in the sky and saw every nightmare she’d ever had pouring out right in front of her.

 _Stop_. It’s one word, one stupid useless word, but it’s everything. It feels like everything, anyway, even if it’s not really, and she doesn’t even care that it breaks over her tongue, that it falls to pieces before it even hits the air, cracks and hitches and turns to tears, because at least it’s out there. It’s _out there_ , and that makes it real. Even if Cassandra doesn’t listen, even if she doesn’t hear, even if nobody ever hears, she can still say it. They can boil her blood, freeze her limbs, but they can’t take away the word.

“I do not wish to stop trying,” Cassandra says, very quietly, because of course she doesn’t hear. Of course she never bloody listens. “And in truth, Sera, I don’t believe I should.”

She’s being really careful not to touch her, at least not with her hands; it’s not much, but it’s something. A token gesture, maybe, but still more than she’s ever had before. Maybe she took Sera’s earlier threats to heart, or maybe she just senses that now isn’t the time, that Sera’s skin is still tingling with unwanted touches, demons and magic and all those things she can’t bear. Whatever the reason, she knows better than to add her hands, knows better than to make herself another thing that can’t ever touch Sera again.

She’s still close, though, dangerously, breath-catchingly close. Sera can feel her armour just barely grazing the places where her skin’s still bare, where she hasn’t bothered to put her shirt back on. The air’s cold, and the brush of metal is even colder; her nipples are hard and painful, a comforting kind of pain after the demon kind, and she’s sure she’d be giving the Seeker a brilliant eyeful if Cassandra was the type to steal sneaky glances. She’s not, of course, but that’s her loss, innit?

“Course you don’t.” The serious, shit, though. Her voice is rough, like a blunt blade dragged across a stone. “But _I_ do. _I_ want you to stop. _I_ believe you should. That’s me, and I’m the one asking you to do it. Isn’t that enough, Seeker? Shouldn’t that be enough?”

It’s not, of course. Wasn’t enough when she said she didn’t want Vivienne’s magic, wasn’t enough when she told them not to touch her. What she wants is never enough, and what she believes is less than nothing. She knows that, and so does Cassandra.

“I—”

“Apologise. I know. That’s what you do, innit? Apologise, and then do the same stupid shit all over again. You don’t get how I feel or what I want, and you don’t bloody _care_. How are you ever gonna… how can you expect to…” She shakes her head, feels the weight of too much thinking, too much magic, pounding like a headache behind her eyes. “How can that stuck-up bitch get it when you don’t? You’re supposed to be a Seeker. You’re supposed to find the truth. You’re supposed to…”

Cassandra sighs, deep and regretful. “I am supposed to be _better_. And I am sorry that I have failed to be.”

“Bloody right, you are,” Sera snaps. “Meant to be better, I mean. Don’t care how frigging sorry you are.”

“I understand.” She shifts against her, and Sera doesn’t miss the way it brings her a little closer, close like on the floor of that beat-up old shack at the Crossroads, the moment that wasn’t a moment after all. Closeness that should mean something, something more than too much cold, too much iron pressed against her. “I’m not accustomed to people like you, Sera. You have such passion. You feel things so strongly, so powerfully, and I did not stop to consider how you might have… the impression I might have…”

“Didn’t mean to lead me on,” Sera offers, blunt as a spoon. “That what you’re trying to get out, Seeker?”

“No!” The look on her face is priceless, almost enough to chase the rest away. “Nothing so crass, I assure you.”

“Right. Sure. Whatever you say.” She sighs too, but it’s like rocks in her chest, pain that rattles like bones, and it takes everything she has not to start thinking again, not to wonder if it’s demons, if it’s still inside her, if she’ll ever stop feeling it. “Well, don’t worry. I don’t think about you that way. I mean… well, not, like, properly or anything. Maybe for a laugh inside my head sometimes. Just to imagine what it’d be like. Like you do, yeah? But for real?” She shakes her head, far too quick to be truthful. “Too much passion. You and me, both. You’re like that too, you know? Passionate and shit.”

Cassandra makes a disgusted noise, all nasal and offended, like it’s the worst thing she can think of. “I was _not_ talking about that,” she says, so emphatic it almost stings. “I was simply referring to… well, you seemed to think that I…” The low-lying moonlight bounces off her gauntlets, blinding as she wrings her hands. “Forgive me. I don’t have Varric’s talent for words.”

“Yeah, you do,” Sera says, and the truth of it shuts out the fact that she’s still upset. “Well. Better than you think you are, anyway.” Cassandra shoots her a look, guarded and confused, so Sera tries to explain. “I hear you sometimes. Haven, yeah? Middle of the night, in your room, talking to yourself like no-one can hear? Words, words, words…”

Cassandra blushes. Like, properly _blushes_. It’s cute. “Were you never taught that it is rude to eavesdrop?”

“Wasn’t eavesdropping,” Sera mutters, though it’s true enough that she was never told not to. “You’re just bloody loud, that’s all. But whatever. Not the point, is it? Point is, you’re better than you think you are. You just think you’re shit so you don’t ever try. Safer, right? Don’t try, don’t fail, no-one loses. But it’s a waste. It’s a stupid bloody waste, and you should…” She looks down, studies the grass, stops herself before she lets that passion get the better of her. “Just saying.”

Cassandra stares at her for a very long moment, like she doesn’t know what to say. “That is…”

Sera shrugs, helps her out. “…‘not the point’?”

“Indeed.” The word is little more than a grunt, guttural and sullen, but it’s about the best she can come up with. Sera might be clumsy and awkward when it comes to using her hands, but Cassandra trips over her tongue more often than a drunk nug. “What I am trying to say is that I… did not conduct myself well last night. I should not have dismissed your feelings as I did. It was thoughtless of me.”

“And?”

“And I am sorry if I wounded you.”

Great. Exactly what she didn’t want, or need, to hear. Sera rolls her eyes, wills herself not to walk away.

“ _You_ didn’t wound me,” she says, upset that she has to explain this shit. “The sodding demon did that. You just came along and…” It’s harder than it should be to say it, to make it into something solid and real, something that would make sense to someone like Cassandra, someone who knows what sense is. “It’s like… it’s like you took me someplace warm and safe and soft… someplace like _home_ , you know? And then, soon as we got there, you pulled back the frigging curtain and it turned out it wasn’t really that at all. It was some other place, some snobby Orlesian palace with Lady Viv lording it over everyone. And that… it’s not a _wound_ , Seeker. You don’t get to toss some rich-tit healer at it and make it disappear.”

“I understand that.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that, don’t you? Keep saying you understand, but you don’t. You just pretend you do. You make believe you understand when it’s just you and me. And you let _me_ believe it too, like you know how much it… like you know how important it is. And then, as soon as we’re back out there with the rest of ’em, you turn around and turn it into something else. Make it cheap and stupid, just so your precious Lady Viv doesn’t think less of you.”

“That is not what I—”

“Yeah, it is. It bloody _is_.” It’s getting hard to breathe; her eyes are stinging, pressure building up in her head where the tears want to be, but she won’t let them win. “And you know the funny part? The really hilarious shit? _She_ gets it. You don’t, but _she_ does. She gets it.”

Cassandra frowns. “I am… pleased to hear that,” she says. “Surprised, but pleased. You deserve somebody who does.”

“But I didn’t want _her_ , did I?” Saying it hurts, a feverish hurt, like envy or pride or that other demon, the one she can’t think about right now. “I wanted _you_.”

It comes out hotter than it should, heavier, more meaning. _Passionate_ , and there’s something achingly beautiful in the way that Cassandra looks at her, the way Sera imagines heartbreak instead of arrogance.

And there it is, there _she_ is; even though she must know that it was right, the whole not-touching thing, even though she must see that Sera doesn’t want it, can’t want it, still she’s pulling off her gauntlets again, chucking them onto the grass and touching her. _Touching her_ , her face and her body, a palm against her jaw and fingers light across her upper arm, close to her shoulder. Touching, _contact_ , and it’s sweet, it’s like the Crossroads, like the moment when she thought she understood, but she doesn’t, she doesn’t, she _doesn’t_. She doesn’t understand, can’t understand, and it’s just like Sera, Sera who won’t allow herself to want this, who doesn’t want to be touched ever again.

She can’t. Not now, not ever, not until the demons are all gone, not until she’s safe, not until the warmth is really warm, until real things are real and Fade things are just bad dreams. She can’t stand to be touched, can’t stand to think of magic and demons and pain, of being held down instead of being held.

Besides, Cassandra’s hands only know how to touch things forged in iron.

“You were right,” Cassandra says, and Sera hates that she can’t pull away. “I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“Well, let me…” Sera swallows, thick and heavy. “Let me break it down for you, Your Seekerness.” Cassandra nods, a tilt of her head that brings her chin close to the top of Sera’s. “You’re big. You’re big and you’re tough and you’re scary. Demons come after you, you smash them to pieces. You kill ’em. Hard and fast. Like, _bam_.” She slams her fist down on an open palm, braces against the impact, strength and pain. “Demons come after you, you make ’em pay. Demons come after me? They eat me alive. They don’t kill me, ’cause that’d be easy. They kill me, then I’m dead. Dead people don’t care. I’d like that. Want it, even. I don’t care if I’m dead, Seeker… but I’m not. I’m not dead. I’m _here_ , and that’s worse. I’m here and I can’t… I can’t… I…”

“Sera.” Cassandra’s voice is strong. Strong like she is, iron like Vivienne’s fingers, like her gauntlets, like passion.

“I can’t,” Sera whispers. “They take pieces out of me, but they don’t kill me. They just leave me here wishing that they had. And now I’m stuck. I’m stuck here, and I can’t stop thinking that they’re in me, they’re inside me, and if they’d killed me it’d be okay, but they didn’t, so now I have to live with it. Forever. It cut me open, the demon, and then Viv cut me open again to close me up. And she didn’t even ask permission, did she? Didn’t ask if it was okay, didn’t even say _‘if I may’_. She just bloody did it, just like the demon. Just did it. Never ask, do they? Never. And it doesn’t matter that it was good magic, does it, ’cause it was still _magic_. Good magic is still _magic_ , Seeker. You can’t cut someone open and just close ’em up again like it’s all okay. Can’t just make it disappear. Because it’s not… it’s not just the hurty bits. Yeah? It’s not just the bits that got torn up in me, skin and blood and shit. It’s not that at all. Don’t you get it?”

“I believe I do…” She makes it sound like it’s true, but they both know it’s not; at least this time, they both know it.

“You can’t magic away the magic. That’s like trying to dirt away the dirt. It’s in you, it’s under your clothes, your nails, your skin. It’s inside you, and you can’t make it go away. Viv gets it, but she’s part of it too. She’s _magic_ , just like them. And she can’t… she gets it, but she _can’t_. I can’t let her touch me now. Not ever again. Because she did, didn’t she? She did, and it _hurt_ , and it doesn’t matter that it was healing or whatever, because it _hurt_ , and I was so…” She shakes her head, bites back a scream, the memory of her limbs like stone, not her own. “But you… _you_ …”

“I am not a mage,” Cassandra says, and nods. “You feel safe with me.”

Sera bites off a whimper. Nearly a sob, but not quite. Not yet. “I don’t get how you don’t get it. You’re so smart, you are, but so bloody stupid too. How can you be so stupid?”

“A great deal of practice,” Cassandra says, and almost smiles.

Sera whimpers again, lets the lump rise up in her throat, close to the surface. “They hurt. Demons, magic, all that shit. They hurt people… hurt _me_ … and there’s nothing I can do. And you’ll never know what that feels like, will you? You’ll never, ever get it, because it won’t ever happen to you. Not once, not ever. You don’t know what it’s like, what it’s _really_ like.”

“I…”

“No. You talk like you have, but you haven’t. Not really. Not in all that armour. You don’t get it. What it feels like to be can’t-breathe terrified every day, every minute, every…” She shakes her head. “So, yeah, okay. Maybe once upon a time. But I bet you don’t even remember. Like, _really_ remember. Scared right down to your soul, guts turning inside-out, bones turning to water? Remember that? Remember how it feels when every last frigging part of you turns into something stupid and small… something _worthless_ … something like…”

“Something like you?” Cassandra offers, and she’s tearful too. It helps, if only a little. “Sera, that is not how I see you.”

“Doesn’t matter what you see, does it? It’s what I _am_. You’re a Seeker, but it doesn’t matter if you see it or not, because it’s real. It’s real, and it’s _me_ , and you…” She swallows a breath, gasps, wishes it hurt more. “You’re scary, you know? You’re so frigging scary. But me? I’m just _scared_.”

The word is a shudder, a tremor in her chest, and then she’s sobbing all over again. Not just crying little tears, a breath and a whimper and a sniffle and then it’s over. Not like that at all; she’s full-on bawling, like she did after Vivienne was done, like she did when she didn’t care. It’s embarrassing and messy and horrible, salt getting everywhere, real proper ugly sobbing, and she doesn’t care now either. She doesn’t care that Cassandra can see it all, that she’s there, that she’s touching her, probably getting her armour all rusty and useless. She doesn’t care.

It’s like magic, like Vivienne’s magic, like demon magic, like all those horrible things, but it’s not. It’s not magic at all, is it? It’s just her, just stupid scared Sera, and she can’t move or breathe or think; she can only sob and sob and sob, and let Cassandra touch her.

“It is not the demons,” Cassandra whispers, breath warm against Sera’s face, the places gone wet with salt. “It is the fear.”

For a long time, Sera can’t say anything. She wants to, or part of her does anyway, but she can’t stop the sobbing now that it’s started, can’t hold back the flood of all those things she’s tried so hard to push down, all the thinking, the remembering, the feeling. She can’t stop it, can’t quiet it, can only sit there and ride it out, ride it out with Cassandra’s arms around her, Cassandra’s hands at her back and in her hair, iron across her skin, armour scraping like a weapon against scars and blemishes and imperfections, against Sera’s life, a life carved out in fear just like this, _fear_ stamped all over her body.

 _Don’t touch me,_ she thinks, but she’s the one pressing closer, the one leaning in. She’s the one finding a kind of strength in the way Cassandra’s armour digs in, the way it leaves marks, the way it brands her just like all those other fears, all those other hard metals and hard touches.

It feels like hours before she stops, before the sobbing stops, and in all that time Cassandra doesn’t let go. She doesn’t say _‘it’s all right’_ , doesn’t try to comfort her, doesn’t say anything at all; she just holds her, touches her, wraps her up in all that armour, all that iron that is nothing like Vivienne’s fingers. She just exists, Seeker Pentaghast, _Cassandra_ , and lets Sera exist too. Scared, stupid Sera, and Cassandra doesn’t tell her that it’s not okay, doesn’t tell her that it _is_ okay, doesn’t tell her anything at all. She just lets her _be_ , lets her sob and scream and pour out all the things she’s scared of. Demons, magic, rifts, Fade. It’s not okay, but it’s not _not_ -okay, and that gives her a weird kind of hope.

“I cannot protect you from that,” Cassandra murmurs, when Sera’s finally breathing again. “I can protect you from demons, from mages, even from the Fade if it ever comes to that. But fear? That is something beyond. It is a personal thing, a demon in its own right, but one that I cannot shield you from.”

Sera sniffles, hiccups. She feels very young, and maybe she looks young too, because Cassandra’s fingers are in her hair again, threading little lines through the wayward strands, soothing like a mother would be soothing, not like a lover or even a friend, but like someone who knows how to take care of people. Like that Mother Giselle, only without the stick up her arse. Cassandra doesn’t know much; she knows stuff, but she doesn’t really _know_ it. She’s smart, but not bright, but she takes to this, to Sera, like she’s been doing it her whole life, like she’s got her own kind of kids, people who need her to be strong for them, need her to be brave when they can’t, need her to stand up and be big when they’re small. People like Sera.

“I don’t want that,” Sera says, and doesn’t realise until after it’s out that she means it. “I… I thought I did. At the Crossroads, you know? Before you went and ruined it. I thought I wanted you to do that. Stand in front of me, all big and tough and Seekery. Protect me from the big bad demons. But it won’t help.” She swallows hard, braces for the truth. “It won’t make me less scared, will it?”

“No.” Cassandra sighs, very quietly, like she really does understand. “I’m afraid it will not.”

“Then what will?” Sera asks, and hates that she already knows.

Cassandra presses her cheek to Sera’s temple, sorry and sad. “I’m afraid that is something you must discover on your own.”

*


	4. Chapter 4

*

The Herald fixes up the tent, but Sera doesn’t sleep.

She spends the night huddled in a corner, hugging her bow close to her chest and staring at the spots where moonlight cuts through the fabric. The night feels much colder than it probably is, and darker too, which is kind of weird given the whole ‘moonlight’ thing. Makes it feel ominous, creepy. Makes it feel _dangerous_ , like she’s prey, and she can’t stop shivering.

Sera’s never been afraid of the dark. She’s been afraid of a lot of things, usually with good reason, but the dark never really seemed so bad; it was easier to stay out of sight when the dark corners were everywhere, shadows and spectres, a hundred little hiding places just waiting for her to sneak inside. The darkness has always been generous to her, protected her like a parent in the years when she didn’t have any and comforted her like a friend in the years when she had none of those; it’s always taken care of her, always kept her safe from the things that really were scary, and she could never be afraid of something like that.

And, yeah. Truth be told, it’s not even really the darkness that’s got her shaking right now. The darkness is good, the same as it always was. Shadows to hide in, safe places to crawl into, dark corners to protect her. It’s not the dark that’s scary at all; it’s the thought that something might be waiting out there to light it up.

The fear eats away at her, cuts through her like the moonlight cuts through the tent, gets into her eyes and makes her tremble. A whisper of wind in the trees behind the camp, and she’s sure it’s an army of mages waiting to come at her with fireballs and frostbolts. A murmur from one of the other tents — the Herald talking in her sleep, Cassandra’s light snoring — and she’s sure it’s the demon come to finish the job, waiting with glowing eyes to open her up and pour itself back inside.

So many things to be scared of, so many things, and she can’t shut them out. She can’t stop thinking, can’t stop _imagining_ , and it doesn’t matter that she knows she’s safe, that she knows the others will protect her. The Herald with her stupid mark, the glowy green thing that closes rifts and Breaches and sends the demons back where they belong. Vivienne with her sharp tongue and sharper eyes, with her fingers forged in iron; she’s part of the problem, but the way she talks can almost make Sera forget that sometimes. Cassandra, _Cassandra_ , and her armour, her strength, her courage; she can’t protect Sera from the fear, but she can protect her from the things that frighten her. They’re all out there, all three of them, and she knows it, knows that the demons will have to go through them first if they want to come after her. She _knows it_ , but knowing isn’t always good enough, and right now it doesn’t help. Nothing helps, nothing at all, because the imagining is so much worse than anything real could ever hope to be.

She heads outside as soon as the light’s up. The real light, that is, _sunlight_ , the light that comes from up there, the nearly-safe place high above the stupid Breach. It’s good hunting light, hazy and dawny, and running around the arse end of nowhere killing breakfast is a whole lot more fun that cowering in a corner of a tent and hugging her bow like a stupid stuffed animal. It feels good to use the thing, to actually do something with it, to make herself useful instead of shivering and feeling small. Besides, it helps her to pretend that she’s fighting the demons, or even just the idea of demons. Lets her imagine rage and despair and terror instead of skittering animals, lets her make believe that she’s not just sticking little arrows in little things that can’t fight back.

There are still plenty of rams running around, but Sera doesn’t bother going after them this time. It’s too early to wake the others, and they’re too big to drag back to camp all on her own. Besides, kind of more importantly, she’s sick to death of them. Frigging rams and their frigging meat; they got her into this mess in the first place, didn’t they? Too many bad thoughts there, and bad thoughts turn even the best meat into something that sours and sickens in the stomach. No, thanks.

Instead, she sticks a couple of little fennecs, small harmless little things, easy to carry, if a little bony. Probably won’t cook well, and no doubt Lavellan will look at her like she’s nuts, but whatever. At least she’s trying. So piss on Lavellan and her elfy diet.

Her hands are shaking as she ties the animals together, little legs all strung up to make them easier to carry. She tries not to think too much, but some of the demon-darkness still hovers, and when she yanks up some roots and plants and shit for Vivienne it’s with the kind of violence that leaves the stems in tatters. It’s not much, and probably at least mostly inedible, but it’ll do, yeah? Better than nothing.

Still a bastard to haul back, though. Maybe she’s ventured further out than she thought she did, or maybe she’s just not as tough as she pretends; either way, her arms are aching by the time she gets back to the camp. She’s got short legs, and short arms too, and the muscles you get from pulling bowstrings aren’t the same as the kind you get from lugging heavy shit halfway across Thedas. They’d better be bloody grateful.

The Herald is, at least. Not exactly good company, but at least she appreciates the effort. She’s awake by the time Sera gets back, if only just, yawning and stretching and looking more than a little disoriented. _Not a morning person, then? Heh._ Sera wonders how long she’ll be be running around with these people before she knows that stuff about them, knows them well enough to expect this kind of thing. Who likes the mornings, who hates them, who doesn’t give a nug’s arse so long as there’s food on the fire… that sort of shite. She’s never really stuck around in one place long enough to get to know the people who lived there, the people who wriggled their way into her life, so this stuff is still kind of new. Scary, too, though not the demony kind.

Unawake as she is, Lavellan’s already got a fire started, heat and smoke searing the air and turning everything fuzzy. It makes Sera think of demons again, the big fiery kind. _Rage_ , like how she got so angry last night, and her stomach gives an unpleasant lurch as she drops the fennec carcasses at those dainty elf feet.

“Good job,” the Herald says with a smile, and pointedly doesn’t ask why she didn’t get mutton instead.

Sera grunts, but doesn’t say anything. She stares up at the sky, breathes slow and steady and tries not to listen to the sounds of the carcasses being ripped open, insides tossed out, meat parts speared and strung up over the fire. Tries not to think about _death_ , about dead things being turned into food, but it’s more a point of habit than anything else today; the sounds don’t nauseate her nearly as much as all the other things she’s trying not to think about. Welcome distraction, even. Well, almost.

The others join them soon enough. Cassandra’s bright-eyed and eager to get going — _definitely a morning person, that one_ , Sera thinks, and locks that away in the corner of her brain marked ‘Stuff About People’ — but she stops in her tracks at the smell of breakfast. Settles down next to Lavellan without waiting for an invitation, practically drooling at the smell of partly-cooked wildlife.

“Excellent,” she says, and maybe she knows that it’s Sera who caught the food in the first place, because she nods at her from across the fire, bright and beautiful. “And efficient, too.”

 _Right,_ Sera thinks, and ducks her head.

Vivienne, of course, just shakes her head like she’s never seen a sorrier scene. Apparently, mornings fall under the same category as everything else in Thedas so far as she’s concerned, namely the one entitled ‘Things That Are Beneath Me’. She turns her ire on Sera, of course, and after the night she’s had Sera can’t even bring herself to care.

“Whatever will the horsemaster think of us, my dear, if you turn up at his door looking like _that_?”

“Don’t give a nug’s arse what he thinks of us,” Sera says, and shoves back the plate Lavellan’s been waving under her nose. “Bugger off, Herald. Not hungry.”

“Wonderful news,” Vivienne says, beaming like she actually means it. “Perhaps now, without your diabolical table manners ruining the ambience, the rest of us might stand some meagre chance of keeping our appetites.”

The Herald ignores her, frowns at Sera like a babysitter, like Sera asked her to care. “You should eat something. We’ve got a long day ahead of us…”

“Another one,” Sera sighs. “Grand.”

“Another one,” Lavellan echoes, ignoring the sarcasm. “Wouldn’t want you fainting in the middle of it.”

“Maker forbid,” Vivienne cries. “Think of the mess.”

Sera rolls her eyes at them both. She’s too frigging tired and way too frigging cranky to deal with this shit right now, and if choking down a few slices of badly-cooked fox-rodent-thing will get them to turn their stupid faces someplace else, then it’s a small price to pay.

“I don’t _faint_ ,” she says, because she can’t let that one drop, but she’s gracious enough to take the next chunk of meat that Lavellan shoves at her. “Don’t you have more important things to do than fuss over me? Like, I dunno, saving the frigging world or something?”

“Too early in the morning for that,” Lavellan says. “Everyone knows the end of the world never comes before midday.”

Sera snorts, mildly amused (or, well, more than she’d expect to be), and nibbles miserably on her breakfast. She doesn’t miss the way that Cassandra’s watching her, or the way that Vivienne isn’t, two different kinds of pity that both leave toxic tastes in her mouth. Lavellan, at least, has the decency to turn her attention back to her own food, but Sera still feels exposed and stupid.

She keeps her head down, stares at the meat, the floor, whatever she can get her eyes to focus on, anything that isn’t _them_. She can’t stop them from staring at her, she knows, but she can sure as shit pretend she doesn’t notice when they do. She can pretend she’s not listening, too, pretend she’s not here at all, but her ears are sharp as the knives they call them, and even when she doesn’t want to she still hears every word out of their mouths.

Viv’s silent, of course. Probably sulking like Sera, in her own special way, but Cassandra and the Herald are as talkative as ever, giddy as children as they work through their plans for the day ahead.

Horses first, that’s important. Sera could’ve told them that herself, but she doesn’t; it’s why they’re here in the first place, innit? Besides, even if they weren’t important, she’d still be rallying for them because they’re _safe_. No demons around horses, right? No magic, no Fade, no nothing. Horses don’t cast spells. They don’t crawl out of rifts, don’t rip bits out of you and stick in your head for hours and hours and hours. Horses just eat and shit and run.

Surely even Sera can handle a morning of horses.

*

Unsurprisingly, a morning of horses turns quickly into a morning of climbing up hills and planting sticks and hunting wolves.

The hill-climbing stick-planting shit goes well enough. It’s exactly as harmless as Sera could have hoped for, not counting a scraped knee or two, and even that’s well worth it for the way that Vivvy spends about three hours complaining that she would’ve worn more practical shoes if the Herald had thought to inform her that they would be scaling mountains. Like she even owns a pair of practical shoes, Sera thinks. Like she’s ever worn anything practical in her whole frigging life.

It’s the wolves that make the trouble. Of course it is, because by the time they go after them Sera’s just about gotten to the point where she can put her guard down. Always works that way, doesn’t it? She even laughed an hour or so ago; like, proper full-on _laughed_ at some stupid thing the Herald said. Doesn’t sound like much, and she can’t even remember what it was, but it sure felt like a big deal at the time. She’d all but forgotten what it was like to feel so free, to feel so frigging _safe_.

And then, just like that: bam, wolves.

It’s so bloody stupid, and doubly so because most of the time Sera kind of likes wolves. Or, well, dogs, anyway. Pretty much the same thing, right? They’re fast, sure, and dangerous and sharp-toothed and all that fancy shit, but they need to get in close to really do damage. That gives her an advantage. An arrow stops a wolf in its tracks quick enough, drops it dead just like a ram or a fennec or any other stupid animal; it’s easy enough to put one down if you’re fast enough at figuring out where he’s coming from, and Sera’s never met an animal sure-footed enough to outrun one of her arrows. Big or small, wild or tame, they all go down the same way.

Fact is, hunting down a pack of the little bastards is pretty much the most relaxing thing she can think of in a shithole like the Hinterlands. The horse-bloke’s wife gives them a funny look when she tells them about it, though, like there’s something deeper than what they’re hearing, like _‘they’re wolves’_ isn’t reason enough for them being vicious and bloodthirsty. Sera’s always been too cock-sure for her own good, though, and now is no exception; she hears what she wants to hear, and screw the rest. Maybe if she was a little quicker or a little smarter — a little more like Lady Viv, maybe — she might’ve picked up on the subtle warning, the hint of something that isn’t so wolfy at all, but she’s not. She’s not smart, not quick, and she’s sure as shit not like Lady Viv. So, naturally, when she hears _‘wolves’_ all she can think is _thank Andraste_.

Turns out, not even the frigging wolves are safe any more.

She’s not expecting puppies. Even she’s not that stupid. She’s got the picture in her head sure enough: proper forest wolves, big and mean and growly, big yellow eyes and sharp white teeth, all that story-book shite. Lavellan’s probably seen a million of them back in whatever corner of Elfland she comes from. For her part, Sera’s only ever seen the city kind, the mangy half-starved little dog-things that are made more out of pity than pride. Wolves, foxes, all those things that used to be wild before stupid _people_ came along and made them something else. Sera’s seen more than her fair share of them, angry and hungry and desperate, and she always felt like they were more like her than most of the people. Killed a few, let a few more live, and even wild beasts are happy enough to let a tasty meal stroll by if they’re already full up on rubbish.

These things, though? They’re not hungry, not angry, not like anything Sera’s ever seen, and it takes about two seconds to realise that they’re not just wolves.

Big mean things, yeah. Growly, sure. Big yellow eyes, sharp white teeth, all that story-book shite, absolutely. But that’s not the half of it. It’s the way they move, the way they _stare_. Sera’s never seen anything like it, and from the look on her face the Herald hasn’t either. That’s scary, that is; big elfy-elf Lavellan, probably made clothes out of more wolves than Sera’s seen in her whole life, and even _she_ looks freaked out by these things. That’s not a good sign, is it? That’s, like, a really _really_ bad sign, right?

Problem is, they’ve already crept too far into their den to back out now. Is that what it’s even called? Den? Lair? Frigging _house_? And anyway, what do you even call a bunch of not-wolf wolves who might or might not be all demony and possessed and shit? It’d sure be nice to know, if only so they’ll know what to put on her gravestone when the frigging things kill her. Perfect way to die, yeah? Trying to remember what a demon-possessed wolf calls its home.

Anyway. Point is, they’re there. In the den-lair-home thing, the place where the possibly-maybe-possessed wolves live. Too far in to back out now, yeah? Too many of the bastards crawling all around them, peering out from the darkness, and those eyes, those big yellow eyes, they’re not wolf eyes at all. Maybe Sera hasn’t seen real proper forest wolves like Lavellan, maybe she’s only ever seen hungry feral city beasts, but she knows what their eyes look like, and it’s not this. This… those are _demon eyes_. At least they sure as shit look like demon eyes to a half-paralysed elf who hasn’t slept for fear of them.

Everything looks like demons to her, though, doesn’t it? Even the frigging moonlight did, and maybe that would be some kind of comfort if the others weren’t feeling the same way. _You’re crazy,_ she could tell herself, if it was just her and her stupid fears. _Crazy Sera, stupid Sera, seeing demons in everything again. Idiot._ It’d be easy enough to convince herself if she was the only one here, or at least the only one who saw it, but she’s not. She’s not alone, and she’s not the only one who can tell that this isn’t right.

Lavellan hasn’t drawn her weapon yet, but she’s crouched low to the ground, breathing shallow; she’s a hunter and she knows all the good ways to keep the animals away, keep ’em quiet; she looks worried, maybe even a little afraid, and that’s new and worrying. It’s maybe the first time Sera’s seen her shaken like that, like really shaken. This place has thrown a whole mess of crazy shit at them both, but the Herald’s never so much as blinked before now. Now, though? Oh, yeah, she’s blinking all right, and that sets off a weird kind of awful-good feeling in Sera’s gut. Good because it means she’s not alone in feeling the creepy demon wrongness in all of this; awful because it means it’s _real_.

Cassandra’s whipcord-tight too. She’s standing at attention, every muscle in her body gone rigid and tense under her armour. Her hand is on her sword, shield already out in front of her, ready to protect but smart enough to wait, and Sera has to fight to keep from dropping down to her knees and hiding behind her, from fainting like she said she wouldn’t. She doesn’t, though, won’t allow herself. Her breakfast’s churning in her stomach; it was probably a bad idea in the end, breakfast, but at least this way the Herald can pat her on the back and say she didn’t faint.

“Shit.” It’s a whisper, a curse through clenched teeth, the only thing stopping her from screaming. “ _Shit_.”

“Sera.” That’s the Herald, voice low and lethal, like a warning. “Not now.”

 _Not now,_ Sera thinks numbly. _Not now, not now, not now. I can’t do this now, not now, not them, not now._

“Honestly, darling, must you make a scene wherever we go?”

Vivienne’s voice is low too, bitchy, but different. Steady and sort of strange, like she knows, like she _gets it_. And maybe she does; she’s all tense and tight too, fearful but in that sober Orlesian way that says she’s not really allowed to be as scared. Her hand’s on Sera’s shoulder, iron fingers reminding her of who she is, who they both are. The posh prig and the street-urchin, and they get it, the two of them, they _get it_. Sera swallows, blocks out the sight of the wolves, sharp white teeth and big yellow eyes, turns instead to fill herself up with Vivvy and her spiteful face.

“Could ask you the same question,” she grits back, spine straightening.

Vivienne snorts, amusement touched by just the hint of a tremor. “Indeed. Though I, at least, have the grace and dignity to do so in style. You, on the other hand, parade around like a derelict and hope for the best. Do you think it will frighten them, dear, seeing you in such a deplorable state?”

Sera hisses. “Shut it, Vivvy-come-lately.”

It helps, though, just like it always helps. Not that she’d ever admit it, not that either one of them ever would, but it helps them both. Viv’s standing a little straighter, fingers flexing as she pulls them back from Sera’s shoulder, reaches for her staff instead. Game face on, yeah? Works for her.

Works for Sera, too; she finds the strength to draw her bow, nock an arrow, pull back the string. Finds the focus to hold it straight, the courage to aim. She points it right down the middle of the pack, right at the biggest one, right between the eyes. _Who’s scared now, huh?_

Viv’s by her side, staff in hand, a promise laced in lightning. _I have your back, you ignorant little whelp,_ she’s saying, and Sera lets her eyes flash to say, _Right back atcha, rich-tits._

It’s easier that way. Flash her eyes so they lose focus for a second, so they stop seeing. Easier to think about what this means, what they’re doing, the words that neither of them said instead of the blue stuff shimmering at Vivienne’s fingertips, the crackle from the point of her staff, the maelstrom of colours that means _magic_. She doesn’t want to think about that, can’t afford to, not now. Can’t afford to remember how all that magic, Viv’s magic, felt against her skin, how it held her down, choked her…

“Shit,” she whispers again, and watches from some weird dissociated distance as her arrow finds its target.

The others attack. The other wolves, that is. Well, the _others_ , too, but Sera’s so locked in on the wolves she couldn’t give two figs what Lavellan and Cassandra are doing right now. It’s probably the smell of blood that did it, their dead brother lying in the middle of the floor, the need to avenge or some poetic shit like that. Probably in some part of them, yeah, but not just that either. She’s trying her best to hide it, trying her best to be more than what she is, but their jaws are open, slavering, and she can tell even if no-one else can that they _know_. They can see it in her, how scared she is, and that makes them ravenous.

Sad but true: Sera’s not exactly subtle. Never has been. More than that, though, these things are animals; whatever demon craziness is going on inside their heads, that’s what they are first. Animals. And animals, like Sera, know fear. They know what it does, know how close it is to desperation, and how close desperation is to mindless slaughter. They’ve faced foes like her before, wild and frightened little things, maybe wounded, things that have nothing left but the desperate need to survive. They know that she’ll put arrows in every last one of them before she’ll let them touch her, before she loses any more pieces of herself to demons and their teeth, their claws, their _rage_. She’ll kill them all, tear them apart with her bare hands if her bow fails her, and they know it. Yeah, they do. They have to, don’t they, or why would they be coming at her like that? Desperate too, aren’t they? Scared too, aren’t they? _Bastards_.

It’s a short fight, but bloody. Animals don’t handle desperation as well as people, and Sera’s quicker with her bow than they are with those big mean feet. The few who slip past her get iced by Viv or cut down by Cassandra and Lavellan. They do good work, the four of them, at least when one of them isn’t half-dead from terror and dragging the others down. Good work, short work, albeit kind of messy, and Sera finds that she’s lost more arrows than she can salvage from the bodies by the time they’re done. It makes her angry, the waste, but that only lasts about half a second; the instant the fighting’s over, the fear comes back, tears through her like sharp white teeth, shattering even the parts of her that are mourning her precious arrows.

She should be calm, because it’s over; instead she’s terrified, because it was short. Short work, short fight, and that means it’s too simple. The blood on the floor, the last whimpers of dying beasts, too simple. Cassandra hasn’t sheathed her sword, Viv’s still clinging to her staff, and that’s all it takes. Sera knows. She knows because she’s been here before, because she recognises the signs. _Too short, too quick, too easy._ She knows how much it costs to congratulate yourself too early, to ask for applause before the curtain comes down. She knows, and so do the rest of them. It’s not over yet. Things are never this easy.

And of course, she’s right about that. The one bloody thing she’s right about, and she wishes she wasn’t.

 _Demon._ A real one this time. Not just crazed animals possessed by demon thoughts, demon feelings, still animal but also something more. Not just unlucky creatures made into magical weapons by something else. Not this time. This _is_ something else. Something evil, something awful. Demon. Proper demon, real demon, _demon demon demon demon demon_.

Sera’s breath strangles in her throat, turns to a blade and cuts in deep. Lungs howl, guts go tight. Vision black, tongue dry, pale and sweaty, and all she can hear is Lavellan’s words echoing in her head again and again and again. _Not now. Not now. Not now._ Because yeah, she’s not ready for this, _not now_. Maybe she’ll never be ready for this, or maybe one day she will be, but none of that matters because right now she’s not. Not now, just like Lavellan said. _Not now, Andraste, not now…_

“Well,” says Vivienne, voice so distant it might as well be coming from Val Royeaux. “That certainly explains their behaviour, wouldn’t you say?”

That’s it. Just like that, like that’s all that matters, like it’s all she can think about. Sera can’t think at all, can only stare at the thing all slack-jawed and wide-eyed, and a part of her knows she should be readying for another volley, should be filling up that stupid horrible thing with what few arrows she has left, shooting it down before it looks around and sees her, sees that she’s killed all of its pets. She should be… _they_ should be attacking, shouldn’t they? All of them. Viv, Cassandra, the Herald. Attacking, yeah, not standing around and cracking stupid jokes.

That’d be the smart thing, wouldn’t it? Skewer the thing before it has a chance to get its bearings, shaft it before it shafts them first. But they’re not. Not just Sera, but none of them. Herald’s watching the thing, eyes narrowed, and Cassandra’s got that look she gets when she’s in training, thoughtful but ready. Viv’s just… well, _Viv_ , but even she’s not whipping off blasts of ice or lightning or whatever. Not a one of them, not even a breath.

It’s a long, long moment before Sera realises why, realises that they’re trying to figure it out. What’s it do? What’s its weakness? What to watch out for? It’s watching them, too, like it’s thinking the same thing, but Sera doesn’t give a nug’s arse what it does, so long as it’s not eating her face. It’s the others that have her, the others she’s shaking behind, and all they’re doing is thinking.

Do different demons die different ways? Sera realises she doesn’t know. Doesn’t care, either, but it’s just one more of the zillion or so reasons why she’s out of her depth here. They’re smart, they know this shit; if Viv can shoot the right kind of spell at the right kind of demon, maybe it’ll go down easier. If Cassandra can find the weak point in its armour before she lunges in for a swing, she’ll save herself a little stamina. Smart shit, but so far above Sera’s level it might as well be a whole nother language.

“Terror demon,” Cassandra hisses, low and urgent, like Sera didn’t already know about the ‘terror’ part. It’s the one thing she does know, that. “Stand ready…”

 _I can’t,_ Sera thinks. _I can’t do this, I can’t be here. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. Andraste, please. Help me, help me, help me…_

She doesn’t scream. She can’t scream. The demon will swallow the scream whole if she does, and swallow her whole too for daring to let it out. Her bow’s still in her hand, still half-raised in readiness for what she thought, _hoped_ would be another wolf, a big mean alpha thing that dies as quick as the others, just one more possessed beast in a shape that doesn’t scare her. She’s already in Fight Mode, already halfway there, but the other half is so impossibly hard. Halfway, and there’s still so far to go, but maybe that’s why the scream doesn’t come, why she doesn’t black out this time. As hard as it is with the bow halfway up, it’s still somehow easier to raise it the rest of the way than let it drop.

“Go!” That’s the Herald, and it takes Sera an impossibly long moment to realise that she’s talking to Cassandra, _the Seeker_ , and not her. “Now!”

Well, that just makes sense, doesn’t it? Cassandra can handle anything. Demons, magic, _anything_. And there she is, following orders like she always does, charging at the thing with all her strength, shield up and sword out, slamming the demon to the ground like it’s no worse than a person, a stupid stupid person, like it’s flesh and blood and real. _Real_ , and not just demon-real, fear and rage and bad things made manifest, but proper human-real, elfy-real, dwarfy-real… _person_ -real. Like it’s something that really can be stopped with a strong enough shield and a big enough sword.

So there it is, on the ground. The _demon_ , on the _ground_ , and Sera stares at it with her mouth open, bow useless and limp in her hand, dumb and stupid because _how in Andraste’s name did that frigging happen?_

Cassandra’s breathing hard, but of course she knows better than stand back and take a win until her opponent is dead. Proper dead, completely dead, like an actual person would be. Of course she knows better, Princess Trained-From-Birth; that’s why she’s the one who took the shot in the first place, while the only thing Sera could do — the only thing she can still do — is watch, heart is in her mouth, chest so tight it hurts, half-blind and so frigging scared.

Cassandra’s sword is a flash of light, a flash of _Seeker_ as she buries it deep in the thing, the thing that’s a demon, _a real demon_ , buries it right up to the hilt. Demons don’t bleed, or at least Sera doesn’t think they do, but this one shrieks out a death-cry that turns her bones to water.

Sera shrieks too, then. Screams, more like, a wild and half-crazy sort of scream, the kind of scream the wolves made when they were possessed, screaming when they should have been howling. She’s just like that, possessed and crazy, and she lets loose an arrow, two, three, four, everything left in her quiver, lets it all fly.

Arrows, arrows, arrows, the kind that leave holes in people, in wolves, even in _demons_ , holes that say _I was here, Sera was here, Sera, me, we’re here and we’re not dead_. Over and over again, arrows, because even shaking like she is, even terrified and half-blind and screaming with everything left in her, even _she_ can hit a demon that’s lying on the ground. Even _she_ can hit a dead one.

“Die!” Another scream, gurgling and desperate. Another arrow, keen and piercing. Another _good shot_ , and not even the Herald comes forward to stop her this time, not even Vivienne can think of something cruel to say, not even Cassandra can stand to look at her. “Die! Die! Die!”

It’s already dead, of course, but that’s not going to stop her. Sera’s not stupid enough to think that it’s her arrows that killed the thing, or that they even would’ve made a difference if it was still alive to feel them; she saw Cassandra’s sword, saw her shield, watched her charge forward and drive the thing to the ground, watched her run it through until it stopped moving. She was there — _here_ — and she saw it all. She’s not smart, not like any of them, those posh pricks who know all the different ways to kill different demons; she’s not like them, but she knows her shit. She knows enough to know that there’s a difference between a Seeker on the side of righteousness and a stupid elf with her quiver half-full and her wits half-empty. She knows that, knows that she’s nothing, less than nothing, knows that she shouldn’t even be here at all, knows that all the arrows she’s ever owned wouldn’t make a difference, but she doesn’t care.

The arrows run out fast, so she grabs her bow instead, grabs it by one end and slams the other into the demon’s dead face, dead and dissolving and fading back to the Fade, slams it into the horrible thing again and again and again, as many times as she can. Again and again and again, and then it’s gone, really gone, like completely. _Gone,_ and there’s noting left of it but some weird-smelling rags and the fear that keeps her going. And she does. Slams her bow into the place where it was, the ground and the weird-smelling rags, every last trace she can find. Slams, slams, slams, just because she can.

“Die!” It’s not a scream this time, but it’s not a sob yet either.

“Sera…”

Cassandra has a hand on one shoulder, Vivienne a hand on the other. Iron and strength, and Sera falls to her knees because it’s too much for one stupid scared elf to carry all by herself. The bow’s gone now too, broken in half, so she throws it aside in a last great act of defiance, throws it out of reach and slams her fists into the ground instead. Imagines the heat where the demon was lying, imagines the echo of the Fade, the Breach, the nightmare place it came from. Dirt on her knuckles, grass on her knees. Slams the ground again, and again.

“Demon bastard pissing bastard demon! Die! _Die_! Die…”

“It _is_ dead,” Vivienne says, dramatic and weary.

Cassandra sighs her agreement. “Indeed. We are victorious.”

She doesn’t look victorious, though. Vivienne doesn’t either, or Lavellan, and the wolf corpses scattered all around just look small and stupid now that there’s no demon to make them big and mean. No-one looks like they’ve won here, not really, and the sight of it makes Sera feel sick. Sick and small and helpless, like even though the demon’s dead it still somehow beat her. She’s still scared, still stupid, still everything she was before. Nothing’s changed, and she’s never felt so empty.

“Victory tastes like piss,” she says, and presses her face to the spot where the demon died.

*

Victory might taste like piss, but it smells like hay and horses.

The Herald and Lady Viv handle negotiations with Dennet The Horse-Bloke. Delicate stuff, no place for someone like Sera, so she skulks off to the stables. Lavellan, of course, is too busy talking about horses and refugees and watchtowers to even notice her slinking away, but Viv’s whole body relaxes at the sight; no doubt she’s all relieved that Sera won’t be ruining their little chit-chat by belching inappropriately or something. Whatever; she’s got better stuff to do.

The stables are quiet, and so are the horses. Not like completely silent or anything, but quiet just the same. Tranquil, kind of. Not the mage kind, but the peaceful kind, like they’re happy with what they’ve got. Happy with the smell of hay, their quiet stalls, the little things. _Happy_ , and it makes Sera remember that there might’ve once been a day or two — long before the sky got torn open and demons started pouring out of it — where she was happy too. Happy, or at least the non-mage kind of tranquil, a time where the things that scared her were small and easily avoided. Templars with big boots, mages with big sticks, city guards with big boots _and_ big sticks. Still not exactly harmless, but it’s a lot easier to ignore a bruise or a bloody nose than a demon inside you.

Horses don’t have to worry about any of that, though. Not mages, not templars, not guards. Definitely not frigging demons. They’re not like wolves, angry and wild and used to violent feelings. Easy to possess, wolves, but not so much horses; they’re happy here in the hay, happy with their warmth and farm smells and tranquillity. A horse probably wouldn’t even notice if a demon tried to possess him. Just keep right on rolling in that hay like nothing was even happening. Sounds perfect, yeah? Sera wishes it could be like that for her too, wishes she could find so much peace that she’d never have to think of demons ever again.

The horse nickers, a soft little sound, strange and soothing. Dennet says he’s a Ferelden Forder; Sera has no idea what that means, but the name rolls off her tongue when she says it out loud. She’s never been this close to a horse before, she realises. Not a real proper one, anyway; she’s seen the pampered prissy pony things that the nobles have in Val Royeaux, all dressed up and fancy, but they don’t really count. They just go around and around the city squares, looking good and doing nothing. Too much style and not enough sense, just like the people. They’re nothing like this big guy, not peaceful and happy, and they sure as shit wouldn’t be able to ignore a demon if it came at them. They always look tired, she thinks, and a little sad. Easy prey for demons.

She reaches up, stretches to pat the horse on the neck. He’s a lot bigger than she is, a lot bigger than the Val Royeux ponies too; reaching up so high isn’t very comfortable, but he seems to like it, and he stretches down so she can reach easier. Thoughtful, she thinks. Nice of him to care how she feels, and Sera smiles at the sounds he makes. Soft sounds, gentle and thoughtful just like the rest of him. Sweet, like the smell of the hay, the warm dry air, the crackle of straw underfoot. Peaceful. Safe.

Everything feels that way here. Safe. Not quite like a home, but close enough, yeah? Close enough that she can close her eyes and not worry about what she might see. Close enough that she can breathe without it catching, that she can think without being scared. The demons couldn’t take this place even if they tried. Couldn’t take the horses, couldn’t take the stables, couldn’t take _her_ , not as long as she’s here. Safe, proper safe. She wishes she could stay here forever, wrapped up in straw and peace, safe and warm and so close to home.

“A noble beast.”

It’s hard to tell who’s more startled, Sera or the horse. She cries out, yelpy and scared all over again, and of course that freaks him out too. He flinches, sharp and twitchy, like he wants to run away but can’t. It goes right through her, the sight of it, familiar and painful. _Fear_ ; she knows it all too well, and it makes her heart hurt. All the good stuff is gone in a heartbeat, and suddenly even the safe place isn’t safe any more. Should’ve known better. Stupid, like always.

She doesn’t turn around, because she doesn’t want anyone to see how white she is, how quickly the fear came back, but she twists her voice into something tight, something that makes her sound angry instead of frightened, big instead of small.

“Why’d you go and do that?”

“I apologise.”

Heavy boots. Dry straw snapping like twigs in a forest, like bones in an alley, then heavy gauntlets on her shoulder. _Frigging Cassandra_. Sera should’ve known. She always brings the scary things.

“Don’t know how to do anything quietly, do you?”

“In truth, no.” She sounds like she’s smiling. “I thought I might find you in here…”

Sera sighs. “Hoped you wouldn’t. Privacy, Seeker; ever heard of it?”

The horse is still flinchy, still restless, so she pets him on the neck to try and soothe him. He whimpers a little, not so receptive to her attention any more, and who can blame him? It’s upsetting, irrationally so, and she sucks in a breath through her teeth.

“I apologise,” Cassandra says again, like that fixes anything, like she doesn’t say it every frigging time. “I can leave if you’d prefer?”

“Doesn’t make any difference now, does it?” It’s hard to stay angry, hard to be sullen when Cassandra’s voice turns her insides out. “Damage is done. You already scared him. Can’t undo that by saying sorry and pissing off again.” She sighs again, doesn’t even try to hide the fact that this isn’t really about the horse at all. “You make everything noisy. You know that? You make it all so hard. It was quiet in here before you came along. It was peaceful and quiet and he was… he was happy. No demons, no Seekers, no Heralds, no hole in the sky. It was all good, and he was happy. Now there’s you and your stupid big boots, and now he’s upset. Now he’s _scared_ , and can you frigging blame him? Look at you. All big and growly and mean. No wonder horses get scared when you’re around. No wonder…”

She trails off, shakes her head. Buries her face in the horse’s mane, long rough hair tickling her cheek. It makes her feel a little better. Even scared, even jittery and nervous, there’s still something calming about the way he lets her lean on him, the way he lets her touch him. He knows what to do, for her and for himself. He’s smart, bright, calming. Better than some frigging Val Royeaux pony, right? Better than a Seeker, or even a Herald. Better than a stupid scared city elf.

Cassandra breathes out, slow and steady. She’s close, and her breath is warm against Sera’s ear. Sera wants to put some space between them, catch her own breath, but she can’t. Her nose is full of horse-smell, head full of hay, and she can’t pull back from the one place that’s made her feel safe.

“You performed admirably today,” Cassandra murmurs.

“Piss off.”

Finally, Sera turns around, spins to face her. She misses the contact, the rough horse’s hair, but she wants Cassandra to see what she’s talking about, _who_ she’s talking about. She wants her to see it all now, how pale she is, how shaky and scared and stupid, how it only took the snap of heavy boots on dry straw to turn her into a whimpering little nothing all over again. She wants her to see exactly how wrong it is to think that someone like Sera could ever be admirable.

Cassandra doesn’t see it, though. Or if she does, she doesn’t let it show. Her eyes are soft, face hard, refusing to back down. “It is the truth,” she says. “You handled yourself with strength, and with courage.”

“I freaked out. Put all my arrows in shit that was already dead. Broke my bow.” She shakes her head. “I frigging lost it, Seeker.”

Cassandra tilts her head, acknowledging the point but not giving up her own just yet. No point in denying the fact, Sera supposes; they all saw it, didn’t they?

“Indeed you did,” she says. “But not until _after_ the threat had passed.”

Sera turns back to the horse, breathes slowly. “Like that makes any frigging difference.”

“It makes all the difference.” A hand on her shoulder again, squeezing. It’s supposed to be comforting, Sera supposes, but it just feels heavy and painful. She wonders if Cassandra can feel the bone, feel how skinny and small she is, how worthless. “For as long as you were needed, you kept your fears under control. _You_ were in command, Sera; _they_ were not. And you did not allow them to overwhelm you until you were certain that the battle was won.”

“So?”

“So, that is courage.” There’s so much power in her voice, so much passion; Sera hates that she’s already starting to sniffle again. “Sera, we cannot be brave if we are not afraid. It is our fears that _make_ us brave. Facing them and fighting them, doing what needs to be done in spite of them… those are the mark of true bravery. What I do? That is simply duty.”

“Looks pretty brave to me,” Sera mutters.

“Of course it does. Because _you_ are afraid. But I am not, nor have I been for many years. Slaying demons requires no more courage from me than swatting a fly would from you. Do you understand?”

 _Not really,_ Sera thinks, but she’s too embarrassed to say so. “Whatever.”

Cassandra sighs, sees the truth even without the words. “There is nothing remarkable in defeating an enemy that does not frighten you. But taking up arms against an enemy that _does_? Even if you cannot defeat it by your own hand? That is strength, Sera, far beyond anything I can do with my sword. That is—”

“Stupid,” Sera says. She can taste bile in the back of her mouth, fear turning to acid on her tongue.

“ _Admirable_ ,” Cassandra says again, and the horse responds to the power in her voice with a whinny and a flick of his tail. “And I am honoured to fight beside you.”

Sera hugs the horse’s neck, holds him hard and close. He’s restless now, annoyed by all the voices and all the talking. Maybe he wants to take a nap, or maybe he just wants to be left alone; either way, Sera can relate. It’s not comfortable, the way Cassandra talks to her, the way she looks at her; it’s like she’s seeing something that isn’t there, something that isn’t _Sera_ , and it feels wrong to let the words warm her. She can’t be that thing, that admirable courageous thing, and she can’t stand to see Cassandra’s pride turn to shame when she figures it out for herself.

“I didn’t think this through,” she says. The words come out disjointed, horse-hair in her mouth and panic against the roof of her mouth, making her sound strange and sad. “I thought I could help, yeah? Well, I wanted to, anyway. Like, properly help. Actually _do_ shit. I wanted to do that. Wanted to make things right, make things good, make everything normal again. You and the Herald, you’re doing such good shit, and I wanted… you know? I wanted to be a part of it. But I didn’t…” Salt stings behind her eyes, but she forces it back because she doesn’t want to get the horse’s coat all matted. Easier to keep from crying for a horse’s sake than for her own; funny, right? “I didn’t think, did I? Demons, magic, all that shit. I didn’t… I never thought I might have to… never thought they’d be…”

“I know.”

“Yeah.” She tries to breathe. “I didn’t think it through. Didn’t think what I was getting myself into, and now it’s too late to get out. Now I’m stuck here, _stuck_ , and I can’t…”

“That’s not true.” Cassandra takes a long step back, heavy and loud, like she’s making a point with the clanking of those big stupid boots. “You are not ‘stuck’ anywhere. You joined the Inquisition of your own accord, and you are free to leave at any time. Return to Val Royeaux. Or Denerim, if you prefer. Anywhere you like. We can provide transport…”

“Don’t be daft.” She doesn’t trust herself not to start throwing punches, so she reels away and storms out of the stable before she does something she’ll regret. Fordy the Forder doesn’t deserve that.

Cassandra follows, uninvited as always. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” She presses her hands to her head, digs her fingers in. “I can’t bloody well quit now, can I? Not with that thing still up there. Not after all the shit you bastards have put me through. I quit now, then what? I go back to the sodding city and I never sleep again? You think that’s better?” Cassandra sucks in a breath, maybe readying an answer, but Sera shakes her head before she can get it out. “I know what’s out there now, don’t I? I know what that shit can do, what it’ll do to all of us if someone doesn’t… if _we_ don’t stop it.” She shakes her head again, for her own sake this time, trying to drive back the chaos inside. “I go back now? I’ll never sleep again.”

Cassandra makes a weird sound in her throat. Amused, maybe, though that seems kind of mean. “Do you truly believe you will sleep better here?” she asks.

“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” She swallows, thinks of demons, of claws, of the Fade. “This… this stuff. This stupid shit in my head. The fear and the… and the rest of it. It’s not going away.” She looks up at last, and it scares her, the way she’s searching Cassandra’s eyes for answers. “It’s never gonna go away, is it?”

“Perhaps it will. In time, with experience…” But the lie is obvious, and Cassandra is too bloody righteous to let it sit, to let Sera take what tiny shred of comfort she can from trusting her. “More likely, however…” She sighs. “No, it will not.”

Sera nods. Hates the truth, lets herself hate Cassandra for giving it. She asked, of course, but that’s no comfort, is it? Not when all she wants is someone to tell her it’ll be okay.

“Then it doesn’t frigging matter, does it? Here or Val Royeaux or Denerim. What’s the difference if I’m gonna be scared and stupid and small wherever I am?” She swallows, pictures dead demons stuffed with arrows. “Might as well be here, right? Better here than there.” _Better with you than on my own,_ she thinks, but of course she can’t say that. “I mean… well, you know. The Herald’s here, right? Good to get in with the big nobs, yeah? And, well, you know… Lady Vivvy. Don’t get much bigger than her. And… uh…”

Cassandra smiles. “Indeed.”

“Yeah.” Sera flushes, looks at the ground. “Just saying. Good company. Or, well, shit company. But even shit company’s better than none, innit?”

“Indeed.” She’s humouring her, of course, but there’s something like sincerity in the way her eyes are bright, the way they take in the sunlight when Sera looks up at them. “A courageous decision, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Easy to say it, but it doesn’t feel that way. To be honest, it feels like the easy choice, the safe one, maybe even the cowardly one. If she’s going to be scared, isn’t it better to be scared with the people who can try to protect her? That’s not courage, that’s being too afraid to stand up for yourself. Standing behind a Seeker with a shield might not help to stifle the fear, but it’ll stop that demon getting its claws into her again. Keep her safe, even if it can’t keep her strong. Either way, it’s better than hiding under a table in Val Royeaux or shivering in an alley in Denerim. Better than being alone.

Alone. It’s a thing she hasn’t thought about in a while. It’s always been like a second heartbeat, something that’s just there, just a part of her. She’s never really been lonely, but alone? Yeah. Or, well, sort of; friends with Friends, sure, but always on her own. Always in her own little corner doing her own little thing; her rules, her way. Just her, just Sera, and until now that was always enough.

But everything’s different now, innit? Now there are holes in the sky, rifts and demons. The Fade is real now, a real proper thing; she’s seen it. Looked right up into the sky and saw it for herself. She knows what’s out there, and suddenly it’s not enough to be doing her own little thing in her own little corner. Her rules, her way… but demons don’t play by the rules, do they?

That makes it scary. _Alone_. And there’s enough scary shit out there already. Who’s it going to help, adding more?

No. Better here, with the Inquisition. Better to surround herself with real people, actual people. Even posh prigs and Dalish tits are better than nothing. _People_ , the kind that she can see and talk to and touch, the kind that can touch her, gauntlets on her shoulder and heavy boots in the straw. People who can distract her when she’s terrified, keep her calm when she needs it, maybe even keep her sane when the crazy seeps out; nobody’s ever managed that before, but here, who knows? People, the kind who stand there and take swings from demons so stupid little Sera doesn’t have to, the kind who can close Fade rifts, who can shut down the stuff that give her nightmares. People, the kind who smile like poison because they get it, and the kind who probably never will but still know how to make her feel safe.

People. Like the Herald, like Lady Viv, like…

“Cassandra.”

She smiles, the kind of smile that could leave a girl half-blind if she looked directly at it. “Yes, Sera?”

Easy enough to say it, right? All those pretty words spinning in her head, the pretty things they make her feel. The way the sunlight bounces off her armour, off her smile, off her eyes, the way her faith almost makes Sera believe too, the way she makes words into something she can almost understand. _‘Not even Varric can do that,’_ she wants to say. _‘You’re more poetical than he can ever be.’_ She could say it real easy, just spit the words out and let them stand, let that be the end of it. Might make Cassandra smile for a moment or two, but in the end she’d just tell her that ‘poetical’ isn’t a real word, and then they’d be right back where they started.

A lot of words aren’t real words, Sera thinks, but they still mean real things. Like _this_ , the seizing in her chest when she gets an eyeful of Cassandra’s armour, the way her brain loses the fear for a second or two while the rest of her spasms with feeling. Even when she’s angry, even when Cassandra doesn’t understand. It seizes in her, _seizes_ , and it makes her want to say it all. Words that aren’t real-words, because not-real is all she’s ever had, because it’s always been more important to mean something than make sure it’s real. All those things she pretends aren’t true, those things that mean so much, even if they can’t ever be real. Stupid things, _passionate_ things. Easy enough to say it all, but she won’t.

Maybe on the dark days, though. That’ll be okay, right? Think about it when she’s by herself, when she’s _alone_. No doubt in her mind that it’ll happen again, again and again and again. So maybe then, yeah? When she’s so scared she can’t breathe, when the fear tastes like acid on her tongue and there’s no safe stable to hide in, no friendly Forder to let her hug him, no hay to smell like happiness and peace. The bad days, the ones that always find her in the end, when she’s surrounded on all sides by imaginary things, demons and nightmares and the Fade, when she can’t cry out because they might hear, because they’ll find her if they do. The awful days, the days where she needs something, needs _someone_ , but all the doors are closed and it’s cold and she’s all alone. Maybe then, in her head, in the dark, where no-one will hear and no-one will ever know…

Maybe then, yeah? But not now. Not here. Not in front of her.

“Nothing.” Sera’s not like Cassandra; she’s not righteous, and she doesn’t mind letting a lie sit if it’s for a good reason. “Just realised it’s a pretty name. _Cassandra_. Sounds better than ‘Seeker’, anyway, right?”

Cassandra chuckles. Warm, like she knows, like she heard it all. But that’s not possible, is it? Not even a Seeker can see that much, and not even Sera is stupid enough to feel out loud.

“Indeed it does.” It’s just three words, but they stick in Sera’s head like poetry, like those words that no-one else has ever heard, the ones Cassandra whispers to herself in the middle of the night back at Haven. “And you are welcome to use it whenever you like.”

Sera smiles too. Can’t remember the last time she did. Not like this, anyway, all open and eager and not afraid of what might be lurking in the dark to steal the moment away.

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.” A promise, breathless, ringing out like swords on shields, like she knows how much a not-real word can mean.

Warm eyes, warm hands. Even through the gauntlets, the cold iron dazzling in the sun, the armour tough enough to keep the demons out, the shield big enough to bash it down to nothing, the sword sharp enough to run it through, all the strong and solid stuff that makes her a warrior, a _Seeker_ … even through all that, still her hands are warm. Warm and soft, and Sera knows that because they’re holding hers.

Holding, not like friends do, not like a mother does, not like anyone’s ever held any part of her before. Holding, _touching_ , like maybe that’s not so scary after all, like maybe one day she won’t be afraid of it. Touching, holding, contact like words, like _‘if I may…’_ and _‘I apologise’_ and _‘good shot’_. Touching like all those things combined, like knowing, like understanding, like a promise to be better. Touching, and though she doesn’t even bother to take off those stupid gauntlets, still the only thing Sera can feel is the warmth underneath. Warmth, passion, _Cassandra_.

What can she do then? Just take it, of course. What else? So she does. Swallows hard, nods, tries to smile. Say _I get it_ without the words. Because, yeah, she does. She can see it as clear as the sunlight, the gift beyond the gauntlets, beyond the name, beyond everything. Not just protection, not just comfort, but something deeper. A kind of togetherness, like Sera doesn’t need to stand behind her any more, like she can stand next to her and still be safe. Scared, but safe. Like that’s even possible. Hard to believe, sure, especially when she’s feeling like this, so small and so lost… but easier than it should be with iron in her hands and warmth underneath.

So maybe it’s okay to be scared. Even if she’s safe, maybe especially when she’s safe. Okay to scream sometimes, to lose it, to waste all her arrows and break her bow on demons that are already dead. Okay to be small and stupid, to be worthless, to be all the things she hates in herself; Cassandra doesn’t hate them, and maybe that’s enough for now. All those things, those awful pathetic things, and she thinks they’re _admirable_. Even after all that, the screaming, the losing it, all that shit. She’s still here, isn’t she? Still looking at her like she’s not worthless at all, like she’s worth something, worth being a _part_ of something. Still holding her hand, too, like she’s worth that, like she’s earned it.

It’s a gift. Not just the name, not just the safety, not just words like _‘admirable’_ and _‘courage’_ , but bigger words, more important ones. Words like _Cassandra_ , like _Seeker_ , like all those not-real words that spell out so much passion. Like hands, gauntlets, swords and shields and the flash of sunlight in her eyes. Not the things that keep her safe, the things that protect her, but the things that keep her strong. The things that keep her _here_ , even when she’s so scared she wants to die. Peace, a quiet place to be afraid, to be scared without being stupid. Armour brushing her palms, softness underneath, warmth that finally feels like home.

“ _Cassandra_ ,” she says, and holds on as tight as she can.


End file.
